Seven Devils
by GirlsinGlassCages
Summary: It's not easy living with a man who is both a genius and a nutcase. John can deal with the constant mood swings, the disembodied human organs in the fridge and the fact that Sherlock has a tendency to drug his tea. But when Sherlock goes too far and attracts the attention of a psychopathic serial killer, John finds himself in an almost impossible situation.
1. Innocent Pronouns

**Author's Note: All that follows is dedicated to CaughtOutInTheDark who not only inspired this story but also forced me to put it online for others to see. This is my first - and last - fanfiction and every word is dedicated to you, your violin and the deerstalker that you occasionally let me borrow.**

* * *

John felt as if someone had spat acid on his brain. He could feel his heartbeat behind his eyes and the tumultuous churning of his stomach. He stank of night old sweat and second-hand cigarette smoke. He was afraid to move for fear that if he did he might vomit up several of his organs.

Scattered fragments of the night before swirled in his mind like bilge water and through the residual fog of alcohol he remembered being in a club. He remembered the pulsating flashes of neon lights and the thumping sound of lyric-less music and then the endless lines of tequila shots...

He moaned at the mere thought of all the alcohol that he had consumed, of all the alcohol that was still pumping through his veins. He decided that the best course of action was lie as still as possible and to hope that he died before his brain had the chance to feel the full extent of his hangover. He had just been hovering between the realms of consciousness and sleep when something in the kitchen exploded.

John shot up in bed and then quickly pressed his palms over his ears.

He squinted in the semi darkness. His blinds were drawn but thin strips of midday sunlight trickled in, each one seemingly burning his brain like he was some sort of vampire.

Another boom echoed through the flat,

"Sherlock." John tried to call but his throat was too clogged with a mixture of phlegm and last night's half chewed Kebab.

He reached out, took the glass of water that was on his bedside table and chugged it down.

The next boom was followed by the ear-splitting sound of shattering glass.

"Sherlock!" John shouted as he finally gave up and threw the covers off his body. He strode over to the door, his brain thumping around inside of his skull. He yanked open his bedroom door and hissed loudly as strong sunlight smacked him in the face.

Another boom sounded and as John approached the kitchen he could smell... bacon? He rounded the corner and was confronted with one of the most disturbing sights he had even seen grace the rooms of 221B Baker Street.

Sherlock was standing by the kitchen table, a white sheet tied around him like he was some sort of dishevelled Roman Emperor. He was wearing a protective visor and the black locks of his hair were sticking up wildly as if an electric current had been sent through them. On the table in front of him there were a collection of boiling flasks – one of which was suspended over a lit Bunsen burner, a bowl full of, what appeared to be, human testicles and an open carton of broken eggs. On the stove behind him there was a frying pan full of practically carbonised strips of burnt bacon.

"Sherlock," John said as he wiped the back of his hand against his sweating forehead, "What are you doing."

Sherlock, who had been about to crack another egg into a heated skillet, turned his head to look at John. He blinked at him from behind his visor,

"I'm making breakfast." He said as if the fact should have been obvious.

"Why..." John cleared his throat before gesturing in the general direction of the table, "Why are there testicles on the table."

Sherlock cast a disinterested eye over the bowl of sexual organs before shrugging slightly,

"They were for a case, some spousal domestic violence case where the wife was accused of murdering her husband. I was trying to determine what instrument she used to slice off his scrotum. I ended up coming to the conclusion that she used rusty box cutters before I had had a chance to experiment on these cadaver testicles."

He seemed almost crestfallen as he stared at the organs with longing,

"I didn't know what to do with them."

"So you decided to use them as a hazardous form of potpourri?" John asked as he squeezed himself pass Sherlock and began rummaging in the cupboard for some aspirin.

"What exploded?"

"Acetylene gas collected in balloons and then held over a flame."

"What case is that for?"

"No case," Sherlock said as he raised another balloon to the naked flame of the Bunsen burner, "just bored."

The balloon exploded and John thought that his skull had been split open,

"Could you stop that?" He asked as he swirled two dissolvable aspirins in water.

"I'm bored."

"And I'm hung over. I need peace and protein and – considering you've burnt all the bacon and fucked up all the eggs – the least you could do is stop blowing up things in my ear shot!"

"Well what do you suggest I do?" Sherlock demanded as he shoved his way pass John and into the living room, "There's nothing, there's been nothing for weeks." He said as he began pacing. The action caused the sheet to slip off his shoulder, revealing an expanse of pale, sinewy shoulder.

"I can actually feel my brain disintegrating inside my skull."

"I know the feeling." John said as he chugged down his dissolved aspirin.

"That's different," Sherlock said with a distracted wave of his hand, "yours is self-inflicted."

"And yours _isn't?" _John asked incredulously as he sat himself down opposite the bowl of disembodied testicles.

"Does the bullet choose at what speed it is fired from a gun?" Sherlock asked as he stood on one of the coffee tables, kicking a pile of books off the surface in the process. They flew across the room and hit the fire-place with a loud smack.

John gritted his teeth and slammed his hand down on the button of the kettle.

"My mind moves this fast regardless of the stimuli that it's provided with. Without something worthy of captivating my interest my mind goes around in endless loops, snapping from one vacuous thought to another."

"Read a book." John said halfheartedly as he willed the water to boil faster.

"Once you have grasped the basic archetypes of both character development, dynamic and plot structure every book is practically the same."

"Then write a book."

"There's nothing new to contribute. The world of fiction has been dead for years – it's just a matter of time before people start to notice. And besides, writers are too introspective, they spend far too much time in their own heads."

John snorted and buried his head in his hands.

The kettle clicked and John stood up to pour himself a cup of tea,

"Do you want one?"

"I want a cigarette!"

"Nope." John said as he decided to pour Sherlock a cup anyway, maybe he could slip some lithium in with the sugar and knock Sherlock out for a few hours.

"Considering I downgraded cocaine for nicotine I think that_"

"No Sherlock."

"Then what do you propose I do?" Sherlock asked as he pulled the visor off from around his head and threw it against the wall.

"Sherlock!" John hissed as the sound of the plastic hitting the brick wall sliced down his spinal column.

"I'm bored!" Sherlock said as he strode across the room and began rummaging around in the bookshelf.

"Don't even bother looking." John said as he extended a cup of steaming hot tea out to Sherlock, "I hid it along with the _nine_ boxes of bullets I found scattered around the flat."

Sherlock narrowed his eyes at John but took the tea anyway. He sucked in a tentative sip before licking his lips,

"Why don't we play a quick round of "What did John do Last Night"?"

"Oh, no, there's a reason why people don't want to remember alcohol induced blackouts."

Sherlock seemed not to have heard him because he had placed his cup on the coffee table and had began to look at him with the cold, calculating way that he looked at a dead body at a crime scene.

"You went out drinking with Lestrade at around nine after we had our disagreement_"

"It wasn't a disagreement, it was an argument. I'm fed up of you using me in your experiments."

"I put one laxative in your tea and_"

"You put _four _laxatives in my tea Sherlock. I was shitting through an eye of needle for three days."

"That's why I slipped you those blackcurrant flavoured electrolyte drinks."

"Oh for Christ's..." John took a deep breath and then a large sip of tea, "I'm going to have a shower."

John took a final swig of tea before he stood up and headed towards the bathroom.

"John."

John sighed and turned to look at Sherlock who, although still in full deductive mode, was staring at him with a different look in his eye, one that made John feel uncomfortable.

"You went to two pubs and a club last night, six... no seven woman offered to go home with you and at least three men slipped you their numbers. I know what you're like when you're drunk, you get impulsive, careless and incredibly horny." Sherlock's eyes narrowed slightly,

"Why didn't you take any of them up on their offer?"

John stared back at Sherlock for a few moments.

"I wasn't in the mood."

"Yes you were." Sherlock said as he gestured towards the pale blue boxers that John was wearing, "You were wearing those last night; there are multiple pre-ejaculate stains down the seam, all of them several hours old which suggests that you were frequently aroused_"

"Sherlock have you ever thought that sometimes you can be incredibly inappropriate."

"Of course, but that isn't an answer to my question."

John opened his mouth to say something but when no words came out he decided to simply turn around and leave Sherlock to his deductions.

"John_"

"I'm having a shower." John said as he walked into the bathroom and slammed the door behind him.

Thirty-five minutes later John emerged from the shower feeling almost human. His skin was still tingling from the combination of hot water and tea tree body scrub.

He pulled a thick white towel around his waist and picked up his dirty clothing from off the floor. He stared at his boxers for a few seconds and saw tiny patches of decolouration on the front – how on earth had Sherlock seen that? He crumpled them up into a ball and threw both them and his t-shirt into the wash basket. The second he opened the bathroom door he came chest to chest with Sherlock.

"Did you steal my violin too?" Sherlock asked as he blinked through the wave of steam that was rolling out of the bathroom.

"What are you talking about?" John asked as he clutched the towel tighter around his waist.

"Did you steal my violin?"

"Sherlock I just got out of the shower."

"Yes, I can see that, you're currently dripping on my sheet."

John looked down and saw that several water droplets had fallen from his hair and had darkened the white sheet by Sherlock's knees.

"Did you steal my violin?"

"No, for the love of Christ, no I didn't."

"Then why can't I find him!?"

John stared at Sherlock for a moment, unsure if he had heard him correctly,

"_Him_?"

Some of the accusatory rage slipped from Sherlock's face and was replaced with shock.

"Pardon?"

"You referred to your violin as "_him_"."

Sherlock blinked before trying to shrug,

"Many objects are referred to by gender pronouns, ships for example are referred to as "she" and "her"."

"Why is your violin male? Does he look masculine?"

Sherlock's face was like stone,

"Don't mock me John."

"Oh I shall and will mock you Sherlock. Do you have a name for him?" John asked, a shit eating grin slowly spreading across his lips.

"Don't be ridiculous John." But even as he admonished him, John watched as a slight blush stained Sherlock's cheeks.

"What's he called?"

"Shut up John." Sherlock said as he pulled his sheet tighter around him and stormed off in the direction of the front room.

"Come on," John said as he hurried after him, "I promise I won't laugh."

"Well then you're promises mean nothing because you're about two seconds away from pissing yourself."

"Come on, at least let me guess."

"No."

"James?"

"No."

"Darren?"

"No."

"Roger?"

"This is completely_"

"Tiberius?"

"I find_"

"Ned?"

"No."

"Shanikqua?"

"That's a woman's name."

"Mel_"

"John!"

"What?"

"He's called John."

John stared at Sherlock and managed to maintain eye contact for a full four seconds before he burst out laughing.

"It's not that funny." Sherlock said petulantly.

"Why on earth would you name your violin after me?" John said as he wiped the tears from his eyes.

"I never said I named him after you, I simply said that I named him _John_. I know plenty of Johns."

"No you don't."

"I simply like the name."

"When did you name him?"

"What?"

"When did you name your violin John?"

Sherlock narrowed his eyes before he said,

"I think I want tea, do you want tea."

"Ha!" John said as he followed Sherlock into the kitchen, "You named him John after you met me and thus you must have had me in mind while you were naming him."

"That deductive mind of yours John astounds me sometimes, it's like I'm looking at myself in the mirror." Sherlock said as he placed two tea bags into the teapot.

"Evade all you will, it doesn't change the fact that you named your violin after me."

"I wouldn't take it as such a compliment. The fact that I named my violin after you simply suggests that I can play you easily, use you when I'm bored and then put you out of my mind when I have something better to do." Sherlock said as he poured steaming hot water into the teapot.

"Yes, but then you do get a lot of pleasure from fingering me." John had said it as a joke and had hoped that Sherlock would have rolled his eyes and snorted at John in derision.

But Sherlock simply stopped moving. His hand – which had been stirring the tea with a teaspoon – froze mid stir and his eyes seemed to bore into the cup.

"I was joking Sherlock."

Sherlock was quiet for another moment before he suddenly snapped to life again,

"Of course, ha, ha." He said in a monotone as he continued to stir the tea with a little more force than was needed.

John watched him, saw the tension in his shoulder and forearm,

"Are you alright?"

"Absolutely." Sherlock said, finally looking at John, his gaze was impassive; "I simply need a murder, a multiple murder, a murder that defies the laws of relative possibility. I need a serial killer, not one of those boring ones that are driven by pointless sexual need, but a real psychopath." A dreamy looked flitted across his face.

"I need to get dressed." John said as he began to walk towards his bedroom, "Please get rid of those testicles, Christ knows what Mrs Hudson would think if she saw them just lying there."

"What would she think?" Sherlock asked as he spun around and leaned his head against the kitchen cupboards, "Disembodied testicles are hardly some sort of sexual kink, where's the pleasure if they're not attached to a body."

"Sherlock this is getting kind of weird."

"How so?"

"We're two men, both practically naked, staring at a bowl of human testicles talking about sexual kinks."

Sherlock crossed his arms over his chest and squinted at John,

"Isn't that known as "guy talk"?"

"No."

"Hmm...I shall have to rethink some of my theories."

"You do that, I'm going to get dressed."


	2. Initials

_ Thy memory be as a dwelling-place _

_For all sweet sounds and harmonies; oh! then, _

_If solitude, or fear, or pain, or grief, _

_Should be thy portion, with what healing thoughts _

_Of tender joy wilt thou remember me_

- William Wordsworth

* * *

The rain was ice cold on the back of John's neck and the fierce wind stung his cheeks and hands. He had been standing in the middle of a field for the past half an hour watching Sherlock stare at a tree.

He usually didn't mind waiting, he liked to see Sherlock at work, he enjoyed watching his eyes as they darted from one thing to another making connections and deductions that no one else seemed to be able to do. John had also noticed that Sherlock made little noises when he was thinking: little high pitched pops when he was pleased with something or low, deep throated grunts when he was irritated.

It was always euphoric being around Sherlock while he was on a case.

But as thirty minutes ticked into forty and the rain came down harder and colder and Sherlock had yet to stop looking at the tree that – to John – looked the same as the other five thousand trees that surrounded the area… John couldn't help but get slightly irritated.

"What's he doing?" Lestrade asked as he came to stand by John.

"He's looking at a tree."

"Why?"

"I have no idea."

"Hey Sherlock!" Lestrade shouted as he cupped his hands over his mouth in an attempt to help carry his voice through the howling wind, "You are aware that the dead body is over here?"

"There's nothing more I can learn from the body." Sherlock called back.

"You haven't even seen it." Lestrade shouted.

"I don't need to; it'll be identical to the others."

"But you_"

"Do you think that maybe you could cross the thirteen meters of land that separates us so that we can have this pointless conversation without shouting?"

Lestrade mumbled something under his breath before stomping across the sodden ground, "Come with me," he said to John, "if you're not there to stop me I'll end up hitting him."

"What makes you think that I'd stop you?" John asked as he pulled the lapels of his jacket tighter around him and followed Lestrade across the field.

Once they were standing a few feet away from Sherlock, Lestrade said,

"What's the significance of the tree?"

Sherlock was silent for a moment before he extended his hand and pressed a pale finger to the bark,

"Can you see it?" He asked, addressing his question to John.

John took a step closer and saw that, just to the right of Sherlock's finger, there was a set of initials carved into the tree.

"EW?" John read, "What does it stand for?"

"Elizabeth Wilson." Sherlock said as he traced the letters with the pad of his thumb.

"Who_?"

"She's the victim." Lestrade said, "How the hell did you see this Sherlock?"

"He carves the initials of the victim into something near the crime scene. I just had to open my eyes and look – a new concept to you inspector I'm sure."

Lestrade rolled his eyes before he turned and signalled for the forensic team to come over to the tree.

"Why does he do that?" John asked as he watch Sherlock staring at the initials, a small crease marring his brow.

"It's his signature isn't it?" Lestrade said it more as a statement than a question.

"That's one explanation. It's the wrong one but I'll give you points for trying."

"What is it then?" Lestrade asked between gritted teeth.

John watched as Sherlock's fingers traced the bark lethargically, almost like the way he strokes the strings of his violin when he's in deep thought.

"It's a message."

"To who?"

"To me."

"Why_?"

Sherlock suddenly snatched his hand away from the tree and stared at Lestrade,

"They only started to appear after I was asked to join the case. Considering your forensic team is made up of a selection of the finest idiots that have ever graced the police force, I had to go back to the previous crime scenes and examine them. No initials. The first ones appeared the week after you asked me to "help you out". The murder of Isabella Vorn."

Sherlock turned back to the tree and pressed his palms together underneath his chin. He stared at the carving, his eyes darting from side to side, seemingly seeing something that wasn't there.

"These initials are messages to me; he's trying to tell me something."

"Do you mean he's killing to impress you?" Lestrade asked almost outraged.

Sherlock snorted,

"This man is a sexually driven psychopath, he kills because he enjoys it. He would have killed women regardless but he specifically chose these women to send me a message. They differ in race, age and every other form of physical characteristic. Isabella Vorn was married, Eve Gilbert and Olivia Thompson were single, Theodora Hemp was engaged and Elizabeth Wilson was obviously gay."

"How…" Lestrade began but then waved off his own question, "Carry on."

"Every woman differs from the other in every possible way – except for the fact that they're all female – so the message has to be in their names." Sherlock stood silent for a few seconds, seemingly impervious to the pouring rain and ice cold wind.

The second he heard the forensic team approach he made a sound of disgust and stormed off.

"Sherlock," John called after him, "wait up."

He didn't and John was forced to practically sprint through the mud to keep up with the long legged strides of Sherlock Holmes.

John passed the tent where the dead woman lay naked and surrounded by wet leaves and grass. The bright white suits worn by the forensic team seemed out of place in this grey, bleak, colourless place.

The sky above them was almost black with heavy clouds and a brewing thunder storm. John watched the ends of Sherlock's coat flutter wildly in the wind, watched as it played violently with the strands of his hair.

"Sherlock." He called again and this time Sherlock stopped and turned to look at him, his face pale and impassive.

John took advantage of Sherlock's moment of stillness to jog over to him. When he finally reached him he saw that Sherlock looked more troubled than exhilarated – which wasn't normal when he was this embedded in a case. His eyes, although bright with thought, were narrowed and the crease in his brow had deepened.

"Are you alright?"

Sherlock stared past him for a moment, his mind lost in a place that John would never be able to reach.

"Something isn't right." Sherlock said at last, "I have this feeling that something isn't right. I'm on the cusp of something, of seeing the truth in blinding Technicolor but at the moment_" he slapped his palms together and pressed them beneath his chin again.

His black hair was plastered to his forehead and neck, an astonishing contrast to the ashen skin of his face.

John watched as a single droplet of water trickled down the column of Sherlock's throat and disappeared beneath his shirt.

"The names are clues; they're part of a picture, a puzzle, something so much bigger than simple murder but what I don't know. I don't know John." Sherlock repeated before his eyes finally found John's.

"This man is goading me, taunting me with fragmented pieces of the past. This is dangerous and usually that would excite me but it doesn't John, this frightens me."

His honestly startled John and he quickly realised that Sherlock was asking him for advice. Sherlock never asked anyone for advice, it wasn't in his nature. But John could see that beneath Sherlock's harsh stare there was a flicker of fear that he had never seen before.

The fact that Sherlock Holmes was frightened of something made John almost petrified.

"You'll work it out." John said, "You always do."

Sherlock just stood there staring at him,

"This feels different. This feels personal."

"Who would want to hurt you?"

At this Sherlock's lips finally twitched into a small semblance of a smile,

"I have a list – which seems to grow larger each year."

"That list might be smaller if you practiced being pleasant to people."

"I am pleasant to people." Sherlock said indignantly.

John nodded and then pointed towards the swarm of people scattered around the field,

"I'd bet good money that if you said hello to anyone of those people they'd punch you straight in the face."

"They're not people," Sherlock said as he looked at them with utter contempt, "they're rats, scurrying around in their invisible cages, completely oblivious to the fact that every second they're slipping closer to death, closer to being completely erased from the face of this Earth. And what would they have contributed? They do nothing but suck up oxygen."

John smiled slightly as he felt a sudden surge of fondness for Sherlock and his blatant disregard for the rest of the human race.

"Should we go home?"

"Why?" Sherlock asked perplexed.

"It's raining."

Sherlock's brow furrowed slightly and he turned his face up to the cloud blackened sky. After a few seconds he tilted his head back to earth, his face now drenched in droplets of rain,

"So it is."


	3. Sleep

_O soothest Sleep! if so it please thee, close_

_In midst of this thine hymn my willing eyes,_

_Then save me, or the passed day will shine_

_Upon my pillow, breeding many woes,—_

_Save me from curious Conscience, that still lords_

_Its strength for darkness, burrowing like a mole;_

_Turn the key deftly in the oiled wards,_

_And seal the hushed Casket of my Soul._

_- John Keats_

* * *

John was dreaming. In his unconscious state images swirled and merged with one another in his mind, each one emerging through a shadowy smog of sleep. For the most part the images were pleasant and his sleep was relatively undisturbed. But occasionally fragmented memories of his life before Baker Street would flicker through his brain, images of war and carnage and broken, faceless bodies.

These dreams used to make him wake up screaming. His pyjamas would always be saturated with sweat and his muscles would be trembling. But since he had started living here these bad dreams had decreased both in frequency and intensity up to a point where he barely remembered them at all.

However this night he was dreaming of Sherlock. He didn't like seeing Sherlock in his dreams because it always confused him. Unconsciousness blurred the lines of friendship and opened up doors that John kept firmly shut when he was awake.

In his dream Sherlock was standing at the bottom of the bed, his face and eyes half swallowed up in shadow. Moonlight illuminated the startling pallor of his skin and John found himself staring intently at the white column of his throat and the sharp edge of his jaw.

He watched as the Dream-Sherlock placed a knee on his bed, he felt the pressure of his weight on the mattress and heard the creak of the bed frame. He watched as Sherlock began to crawl towards him, his eyes dark, his black hair wild and untamed.

John recoiled from the Dream-Sherlock, afraid that if their skin touched something would happen, something bad, something that he could never take back.

The Dream-Sherlock seemed to feel John's fear because he smiled and revealed a set of dazzlingly white teeth which looked almost vampiric in the moonlight.

Sweat gathered down the length of John's spine as he watched as the Dream-Sherlock crawled further up the mattress until the bare skin of his knee nudged against John's outer thigh_

Suddenly John felt heavy hands grab his shoulders and shake him into consciousness. His eyes flew open and, somewhat disoriented, John stared into the face of the real Sherlock Holmes.

"Sherlock?" John asked, trying to make sure that the face in front of him wasn't another dream-like apparition.

"Yes."

John blinked a few times and then just stared at Sherlock – who had yet to remove his hands from John's shoulders.

"What are you doing in here?"

Sherlock's eyes looked wild and John could tell, even in the darkness, that he hadn't slept in days.

"You called me – evidently it must have been during a dream-like state – but you called out my name a few times and you sounded... distressed so I thought it best to come in and see if you were alright."

John sat up in bed, pushing himself away from Sherlock's grip.

"I called out your name?"

"Yes, repeatedly."

John could feel a blush rising in his cheeks and he was thankful for the room's lack of light,

"I'm sorry, I was having a nightmare."

"Involving me?" Sherlock seemed almost amused, "Was I the hero or the villain of the piece?"

"Neither." John said as he shoved Sherlock to the side so that he could peer at the clock on his bedside table, "Why are you awake at four in the morning?"

Sherlock shrugged as he sat himself down on the edge of the bed,

"I haven't been asleep."

"Why?"

"My brain is too full of thoughts. They keep crashing around inside my skull." Sherlock said as he pressed his palm against one of his tired eyes.

"Do you ever get that John," Sherlock asked after he had been silent for a long while, "That feeling of being packed so tightly with thoughts that you feel as if you're going to burst. But no matter how many thoughts you have you can still feel each individual one moving around inside your brain like worms, each one struggling to be heard above the others. And they just get louder and louder and louder and you can feel the entire organ throbbing behind your eyes?"

"No Sherlock, I can't say that I have." John said sleepily as his eyes began to close and his body began to relax into the mattress again. John hadn't realised that he had drifted off to sleep until he heard Sherlock snap,

"John!" And suddenly the room was flooded with blinding light.

John hissed and burrowed deeper under the covers.

"Turn off the light."

"John I need you."

"It's four in the morning."

"That doesn't change the fact that I need you."

"What could you possible need me for?" John asked, his voice muffled by one of his pillows.

"I need to use you as a sounding board."

"Talk to your skull."

"I require some level of oral feedback."

"Sherlock," John said as he stuck his head out from beneath the covers, "Are you aware that I have work in the morning. I have to go off and save lives."

Sherlock snorted,

"You're a GP."

"Sherlock_"

"Just take the day off."

"I need the money."

"I have money, I'll pay you."

"Oh, for the love of God!" John said as he threw off the covers and got out of bed, "Go on then, where do you want me?"

Sherlock gave him a strange look before he said,

"Living room."

John plucked his dressing gown off the floor and stormed off in the direction of the living room, Sherlock following close behind him.

The floor was freezing and John shivered as his bed warm feet came into contact with the chilly floorboards. He slid his arms through his dressing gown and tightened the cord around his waist to try and retain as much heat as he could.

The second he walked into the living room, John was greeted with what looked like the external explosion of Sherlock's mind.

The walls were covered in a mixture of photographs, maps, multicoloured sticky notes and Sherlock's spider scrawl like cursive. Bright red wool had been pinned to certain pictures, attaching them to places on a map or particular sticky notes. The room was in chaos and it made John's brain ache just looking at it.

"When I went to bed," John said as he turned to look at Sherlock, "I cleaned this room. This room was spotless." John waved his arms around, "How the hell did you manage to do all of this in less than five hours?"

"Inclination is a very powerful thing." Sherlock said as he crossed the room and began fixing another piece of wool to the wall with a drawing-pin.

"Sherlock," John said incredulously, "This is lunacy."

"Not lunacy John, logic. Never mistake the two."

"With you it's always so hard to tell the difference." John muttered as he sat down heavily in his armchair.

His eyes traced the walls,

"What is all this?"

"It's a web." Sherlock said excitedly as he came to stand in the middle of the room, "The killer links to all the victims and all the victims, in some way, link to me."

"Do you mean that you know them all, that you met them before they died?"

Sherlock rolled his eyes,

"I don't mean I link to them personally, I simply mean that something in my past links to something that these women represent, like Eve Gilbert." Sherlock said as he practically lunged across the room to thrust his finger against a glossy photo of the deceased woman.

"Eve Gilbert was the secretary for the same cab company that employed Jeff Hope – the serial killer cab driver that you wrote about in your stupid blog."

"My blog isn't stupid; it's cathartic and brings in more clients."

"It has a stupid name: _A Study in Pink_." Sherlock scoffed.

"She was wearing pink; she had a pink phone, pink shoes and a pink suitcase. What would you have preferred me entitle it? _A Study in Green? A Study in Scarlet_?_"

"I don't have time to have this argument again Watson!" Sherlock snapped.

John shut his mouth knowing that Sherlock only called him by his surname when he was either in a playfully good mood or when he was under extreme stress – judging by the way Sherlock was pulling at his hair John was willing to bet on the latter.

"It could have just been a coincidence."

Sherlock shook his head and pointed at a picture of Isabella Vorn.

"Her link to me is more tenuous but the link is clear. Before she moved to London she lived in York where she worked in dog grooming salon called "The Hair of the Hound." Sherlock stared intently at John, willing him to make the connection before he had to spell it out for him.

"The case we took a few years back," John began, his brain searching his memories like a fisherman would search out a lighthouse through a thick coverage of fog, "the one with the dog and the research facility?"

Sherlock nodded frantically,

"What did you entitle that case as on your blog?"

John swallowed,

"The Hound of the Baskervilles."

"Still think it's a coincidence?"

"Sherlock that's only two cases out of the dozens that we've been on, I know it seems strange but it might not be the link."

"But it's not just these two cases." Sherlock said as he began pacing, "I've checked and every single one of these women is linked to the cases that we've been on, even the ones that weren't successful."

"I never wrote about these women in my blog, _you_ didn't even know who they were until you created this... web." John said as he waved his arms around the room, "How was this serial killer able to find out obscure, and yet incredibly intricate, details about cases that he could have only read about on my blog?"

"I don't know." Sherlock practically yelled as he tugged fiercely at his hair as if he wanted to punish it for growing on his head, "If I knew do you really think that I'd be standing here right now? If I knew I wouldn't be creating a web I'd be setting a trap."

John watched as Sherlock paced, the harsh over head light made the purple rings beneath his eyes look darker and almost bruised.

He'd only seen Sherlock like this twice before and each time he had had to resort to drugging his tea and feeding him intravenously. When Sherlock got like this there was no placating him or talking him down, he wouldn't rest or sleep or eat until he had solved the puzzle in his mind. John knew that if he left him like this he would collapse from exhaustion, dehydration or a combination of the two.

"I'm going to put the kettle on."

"I don't want tea." Sherlock snapped as he began furiously scribbling something on a neon yellow sticky note, "This is no time for tea."

John ignored him and padded into the dark kitchen. As he waited for the kettle to boil he slipped back into his room to retrieve his packet of Diazepam from his medical bag. Even though he knew that Sherlock had been clean for the past three years, John never kept any opiate based drugs in his medical bag for fear the temptation might be too great for Sherlock to resist.

He carefully slipped the strip of tablets into the pocket of his dressing gown and headed back into the kitchen.

The kettle had boiled by now and while John let the tea brew in the teapot he crushed up a few tablets to a fine powder before he stirred them into Sherlock's cup. He added several spoonfuls of sugar and a generous amount of milk to help mask the taste. Before going back into the front room he filled up his own cup and slipped the remaining pill sheet back into his pocket.

"I told you I didn't want tea." Sherlock said as John held out the cup to him.

"Going by the wrinkled state of your lips I'm willing to guess that you haven't consumed any liquids in more than thirty-six hours. You either drink this or I'll hook you up to an IV again."

Sherlock glowered at John before he took the cup and sucked down the tea in three large mouthfuls.

_Shit._ John had hoped that over the course of maybe half an hour or so Sherlock would have sipped the tea thus slowly letting the drug enter into his system. But having knocked back the entire cup in less than four seconds the drug was going to hit his blood stream like lightning.

"Happy now?" Sherlock asked as he slammed the empty cup down on his desk.

John simply nodded and smiled, trying not to let his mild panic show. He retook his seat and carefully watched Sherlock for signs of change.

"Before I got on the case he killed sixteen women over the course of three years." Sherlock said as he traced his finger across a timeline that ran the length of the far wall, "Once I got on the case he killed a woman every week for seven weeks and then abruptly stopped a month ago." His finger stopped on the image of the last victim: Annie Normans.

John watched as Sherlock stood staring at a patch of empty wall.

"Sherlock?"

"Organised and methodical serial killers like this one don't simply stop killing unless they are in prison, incapacitated or dead." Sherlock suddenly sprang across the room and began shoving his arms into his coat.

"What are you doing?"

"I need to canvass the Accident and Emergencies."

"What? Which ones?" John asked as he hurriedly put his cup down on the floor and struggled to his feet.

"All of them," Sherlock said as he manically tried to force his other arm into his coat, "Our serial killer has to live in London, he'll be in his late thirties, he'll be white_"

"Sherlock, you can't canvass all the A&E's in London."

"Why not, there are only a hundred and three."

"Sherlock." John said as he grabbed hold of the hem of Sherlock's coat and dragged him away from the door, "It's half past four in the morning, you haven't slept in three days_"

"John, there is a serial killer out there who hasn't... who has just..." Sherlock swayed slightly and closed his eyes.

"Sit down." John said as he took hold of the lapels of Sherlock's coat and pushed him towards the sofa.

"I feel light-headed." Sherlock said as he slumped down into the cushions.

"Just rest."

Sherlock, who had been blinking rapidly, suddenly directed his gaze at John. His expression turned menacing,

"You drugged my tea." He whispered incredulously.

"I had to; you turned our living room into a giant cat's-cradle."

"You drugged my tea!" Sherlock thundered this time as he tried to stand up.

John pressed his palm against Sherlock's chest and, with minimal effort, managed to keep him sat down on the sofa.

"I can't believe you would drug me against my will." Sherlock mumbled as he flicked at John's hand.

"Does the concept of irony elude you entirely?"

"Shut up Watson."

John smiled slightly as he grabbed hold of Sherlock's ankles and heaved them onto the sofa, effectively forcing him to lie flat against the cushions.

Sherlock mumbled a string of expletives under his breath while shooting death glares at John. John ignored him and simply draped the multicoloured blanket, which Mrs Hudson had crocheted for them last Christmas, over Sherlock's coat clad body.

"Just sleep."

"Like I have a choice." Sherlock said as his eyelids began to droop, "What did you give me?"

"Diazepam."

Sherlock groaned, "You should have made a small concession and used an opiate based sedative."

"Doctors are generally advised against giving recovering drug addicts opiates."

"If you're conforming to that logic then I would have to argue that doctors are generally advised not to drug patients against their will!"

"Shut up Sherlock." John said as he switched off the over head light, plunging the room into relative darkness. Pale blue light glowed behind the curtains and when John drew them aside slightly he saw that the night had just begun to slip from the sky.

John closed the curtains and felt his way towards his armchair. He would sit here until he was sure that Sherlock had fallen asleep. He relaxed into his chair and took a few sips of his tea while he listened to Sherlock's soft breathing.

Through the darkness John could just make out the shapes of the women's faces in the photographs. He wondered if Sherlock thought that the man who had murdered these women was evil or whether he just considered him interesting, a mere puzzle that he had to solve? Regardless of what view Sherlock held for this serial killer, once the case was solved another one would come along and they'd be thrust back into this sort of situation again.

This realisation made John feel drained and he rested his head against the back of his armchair. Would they both be doing this when they were seventy? A small smile touched John's lips as he imagined Sherlock turning up to a crime scene on one of those electronic scooters that went five miles an hour, his dark hair bleached white, skin wrinkled and creased with age.

John couldn't imagine Sherlock being that old. In fact, John couldn't imagine Sherlock being any age other than what he was now. Sometimes he was sure that Sherlock had simply popped out of his mother's womb, six-foot four, head of curly black hair, even then wearing that coat.

John was brought out of his thoughts by Sherlock mumbling, "Irene."

John opened his eyes and turned his head towards him.

"Pardon."

"None of the women link to Irene Adler." Sherlock slurred sleepily, "Why would he make allusions to all of the other cases apart from hers?"

John remained very quiet. He didn't fully understand what she meant to Sherlock or what had transpired between them but he had known enough to lie to him and tell him that she was in a witness protection program in America rather than beheaded in Pakistan. He knew that Sherlock still kept her phone in a locked draw in his desk and that he hadn't deleted any of her texts. He also knew that until this moment Sherlock hadn't referred to Irene Adler as anything other than "The Woman".

"Why would he leave her out?" Sherlock mumbled as he snuggled himself deeper into the sofa.

"I don't know." John said.

"She was so important_ I mean her case was so important." Sherlock quickly corrected, "Maybe she's another clue."

John felt panic shoot down his spine. He was sure that Sherlock – the man who saw everything – had known that he was lying about what had happened to Irene. But John had always assumed that because Sherlock had wanted to believe that she was alive he had chosen to overlook the lie.

Now, if Irene was some sort of key to cracking this case the truth would have to be laid bare to Sherlock and there would be no lie for him to hide behind. John worried what this realisation would do to him. The first time she had died Sherlock had slipped into a state of total silence; he had composed new pieces on his violin, had barely eaten and had point-blank refused to talk about how he felt.

John didn't want to see him hurt like that again.

"Just sleep." John said as he buried his head in his hands.

He had been putting this off for a while, hoping that Sherlock would solve the case without having to get him involved. But from the direction that Sherlock's thought process had now taken it was clear that John had no choice but to do what he most despised.

He was going to have to call Mycroft.


	4. Displaced Chronology

_The rays of light fall through the leaves,_

_They ignite and burn and bleach the grass beneath._

_Light makes things clear,_

_Banishes the darkness away,_

_Lays bare the truths of the newly born day._

_- Anon_

* * *

John hadn't been able to return to sleep after Sherlock had passed out. He had simply sat in his armchair drinking countless cups of tea while watching the sun rise through the curtains.

When the room had grown light enough he had tried to read some of the things that Sherlock had written on the sticky notes, but the tense, bunched up letters - which were interspersed randomly with numbers and symbols – had made his brain hurt.

At around five he had settled on re-reading the entries on his blog and scrolling through the pages of comments that fans had left. But before long the words seemed to merge into one and John found himself just staring blankly at the screen.

He had often wondered how it was possible for Sherlock to see the things that he did, how easily he could read people and places, almost as if he was reading the answers off a page. He wondered if it was painful to see so much when all around you appeared to be comparatively blind. John sometimes wondered if he himself annoyed Sherlock with his trite observations and genial contentment with life.

He didn't understand why they worked so well together or why Sherlock – who was constantly either elated or sinking into a chronic depression – generally seemed to find John's company pleasant.

John placed his head on Sherlock's desk and breathed in the smell of the cleaning fluids that Mrs Hudson used.

He had been questioning these things on an increasingly frequent basis and he hated it. He hated how he could feel something inside of him slowly being changed and morphed into something that he was too afraid to look at. It felt as if a knot had been looped around his internal organs and every day it grew a little tighter until the tightness had become an uncomfortable ache.

John turned his head on the desk and stared at the clock. It was seven-forty-five and he had put it off long enough. He sighed, dug into the pocket of his dressing gown and dialled Mycroft's number.

"I'm assuming this call has something to do with Sherlock." Mycroft said as way of a greeting.

"Good morning Mycroft."

"You don't have to bother with pleasantries, at this point in our relationship they have been rendered redundant."

John sighed, the acerbic nature that the brothers shared was only endearing in the younger Holmes.

"I need your help, Sherlock has gotten himself involved with_"

"Why are you whispering?"

"Sherlock's asleep."

Mycroft was silent for a moment,

"I see." Mycroft said and John could almost hear him smirking.

"What? No! No I don't... we didn't... he's just..." John took a deep breath, "I had to drug him. He's become obsessed with a case."

"That seems common place for Sherlock."

"I wouldn't be calling if it wasn't important."

Mycroft sighed,

"What's he done?"

John's gaze travelled across the room and alighted on the sleeping form of Sherlock Holmes. He hadn't moved all night and John, being irrationally worried that he'd had an adverse reaction to the drug, had periodically gotten up to check his pulse.

Sherlock looked peaceful at the moment and although dark rings still marred the skin beneath his eyes, his pale complexion looked almost human in the glow of the morning sun.

"He's attracted the attention of a sadistic serial killer." John said in answer to Mycroft's question

"And exactly why is this a problem? It sounds more like a treat for Sherlock."

John stood up and began pacing quietly,

"He's become obsessed, he's not been sleeping or eating, he's turned our living room into a giant mind map and I had to peel _fourteen _nicotine patches off his arm – which frankly defies the laws of science because he should have overdosed." John rubbed his brow in frustration, "He thinks that the women were killed because they link to some of our past cases. He's been connecting everything with sticky notes and fucking wool." John said as he kicked one of the offending balls of wool across the room.

"He's done all of this before." Mycroft said.

"This is different."

"How so?"

John cast a glance in Sherlock's direction to make sure that he was still sound asleep before he said, "He's been talking about Irene."

Mycroft was silent for so long that John had to check that the call hadn't disconnected,

"Irene Adler is dead." Mycroft said at last, "I have both a physical identification and a DNA match to prove it."

"I know, but Sherlock thinks that she's alive somewhere in America, happily living out her life, tying up men and whipping them into submission. If he probes into it anymore he'll find out that she's dead – that I _lied_ to him – and I don't know how that'll affect him."

"What, the fact that she's dead or the fact that you lied to him?"

John sighed,

"Both. Look Mycroft, I'm worried about him and I don't... I'm not sure how to help him."

There was a knock at the door and John snapped his head in the direction of the hallway. Mrs Hudson would get it – she was usually up by this time.

"Are you still there?" John asked.

"Of course, now let me in."

"Pardon."

"I'm at the door."

John stopped mid-step and turned the phone around to stare at it incredulously,

"How..." he began before putting the phone back to his ear and continuing, "How the hell did you get here so fast? I can't have been speaking to you for more than ten minutes."

"Experience has taught me that, when it comes to Sherlock, it's best to nip the problem in the proverbial bud before it gets a chance to turn malignant. Now are you going to let me or would you prefer for us to continue having this conversation over the phone?"

"I... I'll be there in a minute." John said before he disconnected the call and padded down the stairs.

The early morning air was cold and the bright burst of sunlight stung John's eyes. He had to shield his face before he could clearly see the outline of Mycroft Holmes standing at the doorstep.

"Good morning John." Mycroft said with a tight lipped smile.

John was sure that Mycroft had a sort of symbiotic relationship with his suits, almost as if he was some sort of beetle type creature and the suit was his exoskeleton. John wondered if he slept in it.

"Are you going to invite me in?"

John nodded and walked away from the door, allowing Mycroft to follow him up the stairs.

Once John re-entered the front room he saw that Sherlock was sitting up, half of his hair plastered to his face, his eyes still distant with his recent sleep. He rubbed his eyes and then blinked at John as the events of last night began to seep back into his memory. He opened his mouth and looked as if he was about to say something when he spotted Mycroft standing in the hallway.

"What is he doing here?" Sherlock asked as he narrowed his eyes at John.

"I'm just popping by," Mycroft said as he pushed pass John and entered the front room, "I see that you decided to redecorate." Mycroft said as he cast a disinterested eye over the walls.

"You called him." Sherlock said accusatorily, "Was it because of the nicotine patches or the bottles of urine?"

"The_ What _urine_?"

Sherlock ignored him by turning his attention back to Mycroft,

"I don't need your help; I'm on the verge of solving this case."

"Really?" Mycroft said as he unbuttoned the single button that fastened the lapels of his suit jacket together and sat down in the chair opposite John's, "Because John thinks that you're on the verge of a mental breakdown."

"John is mistaken."

"I don't think that he is." Mycroft said as he stared analytically at his brother's face.

They had seemingly entered a staring competition because neither brother had blinked or broken eye contact for at least a minute.

"Should I put the kettle on?" John asked, hoping to dispel some of the tension.

"Why?" Sherlock asked as he finally turned his attention to John, "Is there something else you wish to drug me with?"

"Have you been using again?" Mycroft asked before John could say anything.

Sherlock's head snapped towards his brother,

"Of course I haven't."

"You have that look in your eye, the one you only get when you've been shooting up."

"John_"

"I'm not talking about the Diazepam, I'm talking about cocaine."

Sherlock stood up and wrenched the coat off his back. He turned his bare arms up to the light and slapped the insides of his elbows,

"See, no track marks."

"You have other veins."

Sherlock's nostrils flared and his hands flew to the waistband of his pyjama trousers_

"WOW!" John said, effectively stopping Sherlock's disrobing process, "Boys, let's not do... whatever it is that you're doing. I'll take a blood sample later today and we'll get Molly to analyse it."

"I am not using drugs." Sherlock hissed as he enveloped himself in the crocheted blanket and sat himself down heavily on the sofa.

Mycroft kept his eyes trained on Sherlock for a few moments longer before he turned his attention back to the pictures on the wall.

"John tells me that you've been reviewing your past cases to try and solve this one, what are your thoughts?"

"I will not narrate something that you already know, don't treat me like a child."

"Then don't act like one."

"Boys." John warned again, his eyes flickering around the room to check that there were no sharp objects to hand.

Mycroft sighed and brushed an invisible piece of fluff from his jacket,

"John also tells me that you've been talking about Irene Adler."

Both John and Sherlock became very still.

"I think that it's time to tell you the truth about that particular case." Mycroft continued, seemingly impervious to the two men's obvious discomfort. Mycroft stared impassively at Sherlock for a second before he said,

"She's dead."

John's eyes bore into the side of Sherlock's face searching for any signs of emotion. There was none to be found.

"Dead?" Sherlock asked, his voice clipped and cool.

"Yes, she was beheaded in Pakistan just a little over a year ago. I didn't think that the knowledge of this would benefit you so I told John that she entered into an American witness protection programme."

Sherlock stared blankly back at Mycroft and although his face was impassive, John could see a muscle twitching violently in Sherlock's jaw.

"Does this help you with your case?" Mycroft asked.

Sherlock's eyes shifted from his brother towards the far wall. He was silent for a long time but slowly John watched as blood began to colour Sherlock's cheeks and his eyes started to flicker rapidly from one photograph to another. He appeared almost shocked, as if someone had slapped him across the face.

"What is it?" John asked.

Sherlock stood slowly, the blanket slipping from his shoulders – now completely forgotten. Sherlock moved closer to the wall, seemingly mesmerised by something.

"Sherlock_"

"How did I miss this?" Sherlock whispered as he pressed his finger against the photograph of the first victim.

"Miss what?"

"Objectivism, my objectivism has been compromised." Sherlock said as he suddenly ripped the photograph of Isabella Vorn off the wall, "Seventeen hours spent researching geographical patterns," this statement was followed by the tearing down of several of the maps and, with them, dozens of sticky notes.

"Six days cataloguing past cases," more sticky notes were torn down, "a _week _cross referencing seven years of collective data and all I had to do was look at the only clue that he has been leaving me!" Sherlock practically roared as he torn down the final remnants of the photographs on the wall.

Torn pieces of paper and notes and photographs covered the floor like a layer of dead leaves. The ripped fragments of the dead women's photographed faces intertwined with one another, mismatched pieces of noses and eyes and lips lay amongst the multicoloured sticky notes.

The room was quiet, the silence only broken by the sound of Sherlock's breathing and the rustling of torn paper as he paced across the room.

"What are you talking about?" John asked as he watched Sherlock pace through the piles of paper.

Sherlock's eyes flickered to John's, his body becoming still, "The initials, they're not messages on their own – they need to be put together." Sherlock said and he made a show of interlinking his fingers as if to further convey his point.

John's eyes shifted to Mycroft – who was staring at his brother in complete bemusement.

"Sherlock_"

"Oh for goodness sake!" Sherlock hissed as he strode over to his desk, grabbed a piece of paper and a pen and began to violently carve something into the page, "It's not the chronology of the murders but the chronology of the cases that they link to." He finished writing and thrust the paper at John.

"Isabella Vorn, Eve Gilbert, Olivia Thompson, Theodora Hemp, Elizabeth Wilson, Onika Martins and Annie Normans_ these women, in that order, spell out the message that he was trying to send me."

John looked from Sherlock's face to the piece of paper that he had thrust into his hand. Written on the yellow page were the women's initials, arranged to spell out the sentence:

I'VE GOT THE WOMAN

Slowly John looked up from the page to Sherlock, who was staring at him with an almost crazed look in his eyes; his cheeks flushed bright red with blood.

"This is what he's been trying to tell me." Sherlock said, "He has her John, this serial killer has Irene Adler."


	5. Festering

_Let me dispel a few rumors so they don't fester into facts._

_- Tom Schulman_

* * *

"It's not tight enough you need to_ no John, pull it tighter, tighter, that's it now slap me_ slap me harder, harder, you need to_"

"I have done this before."

"Then why are you doing it wrong?"

"I'm not doing it wrong, I've been drawing blood for years Sherlock; I know what I'm doing." John said between gritted teeth as he pulled the tourniquet tighter around Sherlock's forearm.

"And I have been shooting up for years; I know how to hit the vein the first time." Sherlock said as he shooed John away.

John watched as Sherlock viciously tightened the tourniquet and then slapped the inside of his elbow with such force that John could almost feel the sting on his own skin.

"This is a complete waste of time." Sherlock huffed as John slid the needle into his vein and began to siphon off two vials of blood.

"I peeled fourteen nicotine patches off your arm last night_"

"Nicotine is nothing compared to cocaine_"

"_Fourteen _patches Sherlock, you should be dead."

"I think you're being a little over dramatic_"

"How can Irene Adler be alive?" Mycroft interrupted, his voice was unnervingly calm and quiet.

Mycroft had been sitting in dumbstruck silence since Sherlock had revealed the fact that he had flown to Islamabad, infiltrated a terrorist cell, incapacitated several armed guards, liberated Irene from captivity and put her on a boat heading for New Zealand in less than three days. He hadn't moved for the last half an hour, he had simply stared blankly at the floor, his face ashen and completely impassive.

Sherlock's lips curled up into satisfied smirk,

"I believe I have rendered you ineffable brother. We should commemorate this moment, perhaps invest in a decorative plaque_"

"Why did you do this?" Mycroft asked, finally looking up from the floor to stare at his brother, "I understand why you decoded that message on her phone without thought as to what ulterior motive she might have had... But what I don't understand is why you went to such trouble as to save the woman who proved, publically, that you can, not only be a egotistical show off, but also a blindsided fool."

John watched Sherlock from the corner of his eye, equally, if not more, interested in Sherlock's answer.

Sherlock directed his gaze at the tourniquet around his arm, his long, pale fingers picking at the restrictive elastic,

"Would you have preferred for me to let her be executed?"

"Yes." Mycroft said implicitly without hesitation.

"Well," Sherlock said as he unfastened the tourniquet and threw it in John's direction, "I think that that is the difference that divides you and I."

"I think you'll find, brother dear, that it's not the only difference that divides us." Mycroft said as his eyes briefly fell on John, "I believe that you have to come to terms with the fact that you _care_." He said as if the word had caused him physical pain.

"I don't _care_." Sherlock hissed vehemently.

"Of course you don't." Mycroft said as he crossed one leg over the other and leaned back in the armchair, "I, emotionless creature that I am, often fly half way around the world to save the life of a woman that I've spent no more than a collective few hours with."

"You're reading too much into this – as usual." Sherlock said as John secured a piece of cotton wool to the crook of Sherlock's arm with a liberal amount of surgical tape, "The world is simply a more interesting place with her in it."

"Evidently." Mycroft muttered as his eyes swept over the torn up photographs and maps that still littered the floor, "So, "I've got the woman", do you have any idea who the "I" is referring to?"

"I'm going to take a wild stab in the dark and guess that Moriarty has something to do with this."

"Obviously. Are you planning on going after her? On executing another rescue mission where you save the fragile little creature from the clutches of the evil mad men?"

"Irene Adler is anything but fragile." Sherlock scoffed.

"That wasn't a denial_"

"Nor was it a confirmation. If this man has Irene Adler then I'm sure she'll be perfectly capable of taking care of herself."

"I see," Mycroft said as he clasped his hands together on top of his knee, "Does that mean that you're dropping the case?"

Sherlock said nothing, he simply stared defiantly back at his brother.

"Brilliant." John muttered as he placed the vials of blood securely in his medical bag.

"Ah yes," Mycroft said, finally directing his gaze exclusively at John, "You haven't voiced your opinion regarding the revelation that, not only is Irene Adler alive she is also – allegedly – being held captive by a sadistic serial killer. What are your thoughts?"

"I..." John began and then realised that he didn't know what he thought. There were so many of them buzzing around in his brain that he hardly knew which one to listen to. "I think," John began slowly, finally directing his gaze at Sherlock – who was staring at him intently – "I think that you need to be careful. I think that the combination of Irene Adler, Moriarty and a serial killer is... well it's just not good and I think that if you're not careful then you could get us killed – and by "us" I mean you and me and, speaking for myself, I would really rather live."

Sherlock stared at John for a long moment, his gaze and his face completely impassive. John couldn't tell what he was thinking but, then again, he rarely could.

"I don't know how he knows, but this man – this _serial killer _of woman – knows enough about you to use Irene Adler as bait. Please don't get into a pissing contest with him or Moriarty. The last time all three of us were in a room together he strapped a bomb to my chest and you pointed a gun at his head_"

John trailed off when he saw a flash of excitement flicker through Sherlock's eyes ,

"Oh for the love of…" John muttered.

"What?"

"This is not a game Sherlock."

"Oh but it is John, and it's a really exciting one." Sherlock said, his eyes sparkling with something akin to euphoria.

"I give up." John said as he began packing everything back into his medical bag, "Go and get yourself kidnapped by a serial killer, strap forty kilos of C-4 to your chest and take a stroll through the Houses of Parliament, just don't get me involved."

"I think you're being a little over dramatic John."

"Seriously Sherlock, you need to shut up before I smack you."

Sherlock snorted but John ignored him,

"We need to get these samples to Molly; you should put some clothes on."

"Oh I don't know," Sherlock said as he stretched himself out across the sofa, "she might enjoy seeing me partially clad." The action caused his t-shirt to ride up and reveal a strip of pale stomach – which shone almost blindingly in the bright morning sunlight. John was momentarily mesmerised by the sight of Sherlock's bellybutton and the way that the taut flesh seemed to jump slightly with every beat of his heart.

Mycroft cleared his throat and, as John looked up he saw that Mycroft was smirking at him. John felt heat creep up his throat and he quickly went about admonishing Sherlock for joking about Molly's obvious infatuation with him.

Sherlock snorted again,

"I wasn't being cruel, I was simply making a joke."

"It was at someone else's expense."

Sherlock shrugged and stretched out further, like a cat uncoiling its limbs, and this time the waistband on his trousers began to dip dangerously low_

"Could you put some clothes on?!" John said, not meaning for his voice to sound so loud – or quite so tense.

Sherlock huffed and literally flung himself off the sofa like some sort of petulant five year old,

"Why do I have to go with you? I should be here, reviewing my notes, making links, trying to find out_"

"Sherlock." Mycroft warned, "Stop acting like a spoilt brat and go and put some clothes on."

Sherlock grimaced and stormed off down the hallway in the direction of his bedroom, muttering profanities under his breath as he went.

Once John had heard his bedroom door slam shut he breathed out a sigh of relief and collapsed onto the sofa that Sherlock had recently vacated. The sunlight fell on him and he had to shield his eyes to prevent the harsh rays from burning his brain.

Seconds slipped into minutes and he almost forgot that Mycroft was still sitting in the room.

"Have you talked to him about it?"

John looked up and saw Mycroft staring at him intently.

"Talked to him about what?"

Mycroft levelled him with a steady look,

"About your... evolving feelings."

John blinked,

"I... I don't... he's just my friend, _we're _just friends, I'm not_"

"Yes, yes," Mycroft said, waving off his comments lethargically, as if the prospect of even listening to John's explanations were enough to bore him to tears,

"I know that you're not gay, you've so vehemently impressed that particular piece of information on every person who makes your acquaintance that I couldn't help but be aware of your sexual preferences. But..."

And the word seemed to hit John square in the face, he hated that word in this moment, he hated what it implied, hated the damage that it could cause.

"But you are becoming aware that some of your feelings are transcending the normal bounds of friendship_"

John shushed him, turning his head to stare down the dark hallway and make sure that Sherlock wasn't eavesdropping.

"He can't hear us," Mycroft assured John, "He's intelligent, not a vampire."

John sighed and reluctantly looked back at Mycroft,

"This really has nothing to do with you."

Mycroft nodded,

"Your lack of contradiction is all the admission I need_"

"Mycroft_"

"Don't worry," Mycroft said as he stood up and buttoned up his suit jacket, "I won't say anything. But if I were you – which, thank the heavens I am not – I wouldn't let these feelings fester. The prolonged repression of these sorts of things never end well, you'll find that, one day, you won't be able to take it anymore. This longing inside of you, this evolving feeling, if not addressed, will ruin you and in doing so it will also ruin your friendship with Sherlock."

John looked at Mycroft for a long moment,

"Are you talking from personal experience?"

Mycroft's lips curled into an unpleasant semblance of a smile,

"Good Lord no, I'm referencing from basic psychology. I would never let myself get involved with something as messy as a... sexual relationship." He said, actually shuddering at the utterance of the words.

"Lucky for you, no one wants you to." Sherlock said as he came striding into the living room buttoning up the remaining buttons on his purple shirt.

John must have looked something akin to terrified because Sherlock said,

"Don't worry, I wasn't listening. I assumed that in my absence you two would discuss me and I had no interest in listening to your trite observations."

"Well, this has been fun." Mycroft said as he took out his phone, pressed a series of buttons and then pocketed it again.

"Yes, we really must do it again sometime." Sherlock said as he slid his arms into his coat, "Put a date in the diary John and we'll make a proper evening of it."

"When did you become so sarcastic Sherlock?" Mycroft asked ponderously, "You were always such a literal child."

"Things change."

Mycroft's eyes slid to John and he said with a small smirk, "Indeed they do."

John wanted to punch him and Mycroft must have realised this because his smirk intensified.

"I wish I could stay longer but I have to fire about sixty people for failing to find out that Irene Adler was actually alive – I'll omit the part about you being the one to save her."

"You're too kind Mycroft, now could you very kindly get out?"

"Goodbye John." Mycroft said, a hint of a smirk still playing on his lips as he turned and disappeared down the dark hallway.

"Can you feel that?" Sherlock asked and John turned his head to look at him.

"Feel what?"

"The blood starting to return to your veins, Mycroft has this way of restricting blood flow. You have to make sure that you spend as little time as possible in his presence, otherwise you'll find your flesh turning necrotic and your organs shutting down."

John was rendered momentarily speechless by Sherlock's description.

"What?" Sherlock asked as he looped his scarf around his neck and turned his coat collar up so that it lay flat against his neck, "Do you think I'm being too harsh on him."

"No, I mean after all, he did call you malignant. It's quite apt for you to compare him to some sort of Dementor."

"Compare him to a what?"

John waved his hand dismissively,

"It's a reference to pop culture."

Sherlock grimaced,

"I thought we agreed that you'd stop doing that." Sherlock said as he crouched down on his knees and began rummaging through the debris of paper, evidently searching for something.

"I thought that we agreed that you'd stop blowing things up in the kitchen."

Sherlock swivelled sharply around to look at John,

"I haven't been near my Bunsen burner in almost a fortnight. What have I blown up this week?"

"The carton of eggs that you put in the microwave."

"That wasn't for an experiment." Sherlock said petulantly, "I was hungry."

John hid his smile behind his hand,

"We should go," John said as he stood up, "The sooner we establish that you're clean the sooner we can get home and… deal with fact that both a serial killer and a psychotic criminal master mind want to have you over for dinner. Maybe I should start child locking the internet again or just slap an electronic tag on your ankle_"

"John."

John stopped putting on his coat and turned to look at Sherlock – who was uncharacteristically picking at a loose thread on the collar of his coat.

"Yes?"

Sherlock took in a deep breath, held it for a second before he said,

"I know that you lied to me about Irene Adler, I know that Mycroft told you that she had been beheaded and that you chose to tell me that she had been entered into the witness protection programme." Sherlock looked up from the loose strand of thread and levelled John with his gaze,

"It was unnecessary but… it was appreciated." Sherlock's eyebrow twitched slightly and John realised that this was as close as he was going to get to saying thank you.

John smiled,

"You're welcome."

Sherlock nodded and tugged on his scarf,

"Come on then, let's go and prove that I'm not a crack whore." Sherlock said as he strode pass John and down the stairs.

John stared after him for a moment in mild bemusement, never thinking he'd hear those words escape the lips of Sherlock Holmes.


	6. First and Last Fights

_For one to win one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the acme of skill. To subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill._

- _Sun Tzu_

* * *

In the three years that John had lived at 221B Baker Street he had had a total of two serious fights with Sherlock. The first fight had happened about a year ago when Sherlock had broken into John's psychiatrist's office, made copies of John's patient file and had then taken them home to analyse at leisure. John wouldn't have found out if it hadn't been for the fact that Sherlock had carried out an experiment in which he had soaked all of his socks in a solution of nitric acid and Fairy Liquid and then left the offending garments in a huge, sodden pile on the living room floor.

John hadn't touched them until Mrs Hudson had complained that water was starting to seep through the floor boards and drip onto her kitchen table. After relenting, re-washing and drying the socks, John had been putting them back into Sherlock's draw when he had found his patient file pushed to the back of the cupboard.

He hadn't known what it was at first and had been hesitant to look in case they were some of Sherlock's private documents. But then he had seen his name scattered sporadically through the pages and he had realised what Sherlock had done.

_ "Does privacy mean nothing to you?" John had asked later that night once Sherlock had returned from Bart's with a jar of eyeballs and tin of chopped tomatoes._

_ Sherlock's eyes had flicked from John to the papers that he was holding in his hand._

_ "I see you found the file."_

_ "No Sherlock, not _the _file, it's _my _file. How... it's..."_

_ "It's what?" Sherlock had huffed as he had crossed his arms over his chest._

_ "It's a violation of my privacy."_

_ "I just wanted to find out things about you, that's caring, that's taking an interest, I thought that's what flatmates were supposed to do."_

_ "No, flatmates are supposed to pick up bread and milk when we've run out, or cook dinner once in a while, or clean up when they make a mess, or have the courtesy not keep eyeballs in the fucking fridge!"_

_ "Where else do you propose I keep them?"_

_ John had felt the veins in his neck standing out and he had forced himself to take a long, deep breath._

_ "You're not allowed to do stuff like this, you're not allowed to invade my privacy. So I shall reiterate: Does privacy mean nothing to you?"_

_ Sherlock had raised his eyebrows, _

_ "I could ask the same of you."_

_ "How?"_

_ "The only reason we're having this conversation_"_

_ "It's not a conversation, it's an argument. The way you tell the difference is that when we're having a conversation I DON'T SHOUT!"_

_ Sherlock had flinched but he had held his ground,_

_ "The only reason we're having this _argument _is because you went through my sock draw. You went into my bedroom – which is a private place – and you invaded my privacy. So I think that if I'm willing to forgive you for that then you should be willing to forgive me for_"_

_ "Are you being serious?" John had asked incredulously, "You broke into my psychiatrist's office and stole_"_

_ "Copied_"_

_ "You stole my patient file and then analysed it." John had said as he brandished the pages at Sherlock and then threw them in his general direction, "You've written the word "idiot" and "cretin" a number of times in margins."_

_ "I was referring to the psychiatrist_"_

_ "You also wrote something about "chronic masturbation", were you referring to the psychiatrist that time too?" John had practically roared as he kicked over one of the coffee tables._

_ "John, I think that you're_"_

_ "Don't tell me that I'm over reacting. I'm not over reacting; in fact I think you'll find that I'm _under _reacting... I don't even know how you could..."_

_ Sherlock had narrowed his eyes before saying,_

_ "You don't know how I could have broken into your psychiatrist's office or known about your chronic masturbation habits? Maybe the word "chronic" is too strong, would you prefer the term "vigorous"?"_

_ John had stared blankly at Sherlock before he had turned, grabbed his coat and started to thrust his arms into the sleeves._

_ "Where are you going?"_

_ "Out!" John had said before he had stormed down the hallway and out of the flat. _

This particular fight had been followed by a week of tense silence in which John had refused to be in the same room with Sherlock or accompany him to any crime scenes.

Mrs Hudson had tried to intervene after she realised that, without John there to cook or actually force him to eat, Sherlock was actually starting to disintegrate.

This argument had finally been resolved after Sherlock had taken a personality test online, printed off the results and slid them beneath John's bedroom.

After reading through the pages – which contained some rather disturbing, and yet accurate, observations about Sherlock – John had walked into the front room to find Sherlock peeling the shells off of several dozen boiled eggs.

Sherlock had looked up, his face pensive, eyes slightly wary.

"_Should I be worried about these results?" John had asked as he waved the pages in front of Sherlock._

"_Those tests are grossly inaccurate, there's such a large margin of error due to the fact that the results are mainly based on a percentage system in relation to the multiple choice answers." Sherlock had said as he cracked the shell of one of the boiled eggs, "One of the questions was: Would you kill anyone? With the implication being that if you answered "yes" then you would, by default, be some sort of sociopath rather than acting out of a level of pragmatism." Sherlock had said with a snort._

_John had sighed, crumpled up the pages and then had thrown them in the waste paper basket,_

"_Do you want dinner? Or are you content with your eggs?"_

_Sherlock had shaken his head in derision,_

"_These aren't for eating John." He had said with a small – rather eerie - smile on his face._

_John had waited for him to explain himself but, when Sherlock had done nothing but smile down at his eggs, John had said,_

"_I'll order Thai."_

"_I don't want Thai, I want Indian."_

"_Fine, I'll order Indian." _

"_Ask for extra poppadoms."_

"_Why don't you ring them?" John had asked as he held out his phone to Sherlock._

_Sherlock had looked up at John and had gestured to the egg in his hand,_

"_I'm busy."_

"_What are you doing?"_

"_I'm peeling eggs."_

"_Why?"_

_Sherlock had seemingly contemplated how much to tell John, his eyes had gotten a little narrow and he had pressed his lips into a thin line,_

"_It's for an experiment. I need mass amounts of solid protein."_

"_Why?"_

"_I'd rather not say."_

"_Why not?"_

"_Because it would make you angry."_

"_I'm already angry."_

"_No you're not, you've forgiven me, that's why you offered to order dinner."_

_John had thought about arguing but then had decided against it. He had scrubbed his hand against his brow before he had gone into the kitchen to find the number for the Indian takeout that Sherlock liked._

_Four seconds later, Sherlock had heard John practically scream,_

"_What the fuck is in the sink?"_

The second fight, however, was different from the previous one because this fight wasn't caused by something Sherlock had done but rather by John and this fight hadn't been resolved because it was happening right now.

John had known the second he put his key in the front door and had heard the screeching sound of Sherlock dragging the bow across the strings of his violin that he should probably call Lestrade and go out for a couple of pints – just to take the edge off. He had had an awful day at the clinic – which had been made worse by the fact that he wasn't sleeping too well of late due to the fact that his flatmate refused to stop playing his violin.

He had missed the train to work and then had missed the train home and then had been caught in a torrential rain storm and was thus soaking wet and cold. John was in a foul mood and as he dripped his way up the stairs he could feel the anger bubbling away in his chest.

Instead of going straight to his bedroom – like he should – John went straight into the front room. Sherlock was stretched out in his armchair, clad in the same pyjamas that he'd been wearing for days. His face was blank and his eyes were lifeless as he scraped the bow back and forth tunelessly.

"Stop it." John hissed.

Sherlock looked up at him but his arm kept scraping the bow against the strings.

"You're soaking wet." Sherlock observed disinterestedly.

"I know, I got caught in the rain."

"You should have taken an umbrella."

"Thank you for that insight."

Sherlock's eyebrow twitched slightly at John's sharp tone.

"What's wrong with you?" Sherlock asked as he played a particularly grating note.

"Stop playing your violin, it's driving me insane."

"It helps me think." Sherlock said, still not stopping.

"I can't sleep." John said as he shoved his arms out of his coat and threw it on the floor, "Do you have any idea how many nights it's been since I've slept properly."

"I can't sleep either_"

"That's your problem." John said, his voice getting a little too loud, "You're the one who is obsessing over this case – over finding a woman who has caused us far more trouble than she's worth."

John watched as Sherlock's eyes flashed with something that he couldn't read. His hand finally stilled and the noise stopped.

John closed his eyes in relief and basked in the momentary silence.

"I'm not obsessing over this case because I want to find Irene."

"Why are you on a first name basis with her now?" John asked and he could feel himself slowly losing control of what he was saying, "I mean, you never called her by her first name before, it was always "the woman" – that's why this serial killer wrote "_the woman_" rather than "_Irene_". Why has that changed?"

Sherlock stood up slowly, his bow in one hand, his violin in the other,

"What's wrong with you John?"

"Nothing's wrong with me Sherlock. I'm not the one who plays his violin at two o'clock in the morning, or attracts the attention of sadistic killers or keeps organs in the fridge."

Sherlock looked momentarily outraged,

"I haven't kept any organs in that fridge for over a fortnight."

"I found toes next to the salad dressing this morning."

"_Toes _aren't organs John; I would think that being a doctor you would know the distinction between organs and general body parts." Sherlock said as he pointed his violin at John.

"This is driving me insane." John said as he raked his fingers through his hair, "I can't take this anymore, I can't... you need to give up this case."

Sherlock seemed bewildered,

"What do you mean?"

"I mean you need to drop it, not work on it anymore, _give it up_."

A muscle in Sherlock's jaw twitched,

"I can't do that."

"Why not? Is it because of Irene?"

"What is your obsession with that woman?"

"It's not my obsession Sherlock, it's yours." John said as he took a step closer to Sherlock, "Do you have any idea what it did to me to see you so broken up after the first time she died_?" John asked as he took another step closer, causing Sherlock to back away slightly.

"I was not broken up_"

"You were moody and depressive and all you did was play that fucking violin and compose music like you were love sick. And now that she's back in our lives, you're doing it again, playing your violin, composing music, sinking into one of your chronic periods of depression and I'm telling you that I can't take it anymore." John said and before he knew what he was doing he had taken Sherlock's violin and had smashed it against the wall. The sound of wood splintering and string snapping filled the room.

Sherlock's eyes got very wide, almost childlike, as he turned his head to stare at the shattered remnants of his violin. John watched – completely horrified at what he had done – as Sherlock crouched down and plucked up some of the splinters, cradling them in his hands like they were precious.

John hadn't meant to throw it so hard, he didn't know how he could have broken it so entirely, maybe the wood was old or_ Oh God, maybe it was some sort of ancient Holmes family heirloom that was handed down through the generations and he had just smashed it beyond repair.

"Sherlock..." John began, all former anger completely lost from his tone.

Sherlock didn't look up; instead he continued to pick up pieces of the splintered wood. When he did finally look up John saw that his eyes were tight, almost as if he was holding back tears.

"Sherlock, I_"

"Are you jealous John?"

"What?"

"Are you jealous of Irene Adler for taking up so much of my time and attention?"

"What... why would I be jealous?" John asked.

Sherlock just stared at him for a long moment and the intensity of his stare gave John the awful impression that Sherlock was actually looking inside his brain, reading his thoughts and feelings as easily as one would read a large print book.

They just stood staring at each other for a long moment and John could feel his heart starting to race wildly in his chest and cold sweat starting to gather beneath his arms.

Maybe he already knew, he was the man who knew everything after all, he must have picked up on the way John was acting, he must have noticed that something had started to change between them – at least on John's part.

Maybe he should just confess, get it all out in the open so that they could talk about it and he could finally stop feeling like he was constantly on the verge of either screaming or vomiting. He opened his mouth and he was going to say it, he was going to tell Sherlock about all the thoughts he had been having and about the dreams and about the tightness in his stomach and chest. He was going to tell him that he didn't know what was happening to him, that he didn't know why he was feeling the way that he was and that it terrified him because this wasn't _who_ he was.

John liked women. He was straight – had been his entire life – but... he knew that the way he felt for Sherlock was becoming something more, transcending the bounds of friendship and becoming... becoming something... darker and more desirous and_

"Boys?"

John flinched and quickly turned his head to break Sherlock's almost hypnotic eye contact.

The sound of slipper clad feet approached and in the next moment Mrs Hudson was popping her head around the corner. Her hair was in curlers and her floral dressing gown was pulled tightly around her thin little frame.

She looked from John to Sherlock to the smashed violin on the ground,

"Oh dear, what's happened?"

Sherlock had yet to speak and John could feel his gaze on the back of his neck.

"We've had a little domestic." Sherlock said finally, his voice ice cold and harsh.

"Look at your poor violin." Mrs Hudson said as she scuffled past John and crouched down to pick up some of the broken pieces, "I have some wood glue in my cupboard, do you think we could do something with that?"

If the situation hadn't been quite so tense then her question may have been funny but neither Sherlock nor John laughed, they didn't even smile. For the first time since entering the rooms of 221B Baker Street, John felt like he wasn't home – which was surreal because this was the only place he had felt _at home_. He knew that he couldn't stay, this argument wasn't something that they could easily resolve, wasn't something that could be fixed by ordering dinner or leaving things be.

This was serious and he couldn't deal with it now.

John picked up his coat, keeping his eyes away from Sherlock's piercing gaze, and slipped out of the room. His clothes were still wet and his body was still cold but as he opened the front door he realised that that didn't matter – it was still raining.


	7. Liquid Lubricants

_Were all stars to disappear or die, _  
_I should learn to look at an empty sky _  
_And feel its total dark sublime, _  
_Though this might take me a little time._

_- W.H Auden_

* * *

There was something incredibly depressing about being one of two people left still drinking in a pub at almost midnight on a Wednesday. When he had first arrived the place had been pulsing with life and John had had to shout his order across the bar to be heard over the loud roaring of an enthusiastic stag party and the several dozen chattering patrons. Because of the incessant noise John had kept his phone clasped tightly against his palm so that he could feel if it vibrated, in case someone rang or texted him.

But almost six hours had passed and the stag party had moved on to an afterhours club and the – now half drunken – patrons had slowly trickled out until only John and a man wearing a green felt suit and a yellow straw hat were left chugging down pints like they were glasses of water.

His phone was lying face up on the bar and even though he knew that no one had called or texted he still kept checking the screen.

"Girlfriend?"

John looked up from the foamy remnants of his pint and saw the bartender looking at him reflectively.

"Sorry?"

"You haven't stopped checking your phone since you got here. I've only see guys do that when they've had an argument with their girlfriend and are waiting to see if they've been forgiven yet. So... what did you do?"

John drained the last of his drink before he shook it at the bartender, "It's not my girlfriend," John slurred slightly, "it's my _mate_. I had a fight with my _mate _because he wouldn't stop playing his violin so I smashed it... I smashed his violin which is just... so completely..."

The bartender took the glass from John's hand.

"I _smashed _his violin." John said again, "You can't smash Sherlock's violin, that's like..." John buried his head in his hands, "He's not going to call, he's probably still in the front room picking up pieces of John."

"What?" The bartender asked as he placed a refilled pint of Guinness in front of John.

"John." John moaned, "He named his violin John, after me and I smashed it because he keeps calling Irene Adler by her first name. And now I'm going to have to move out and start living with Harry."

"Harry?"

"My sister. My alcoholic, self centred, narcissistic sister who is probably sitting in some pub just as drunk as I am." John said as he stared at his pint glumly.

"I don't want to move in with Harry, we never got along, we're worse than Sherlock and Mycroft."

"Mycroft?"

"Sherlock's older brother!" John snapped, "What is it with you and the questions? Aren't bartenders supposed to just shut up and serve drinks at exorbitant prices?"

The bartender put up his hands in a sign of mock surrender,

"I was just trying to help – because you look like you're about to throw yourself off a roof."

John laughed,

"That might actually work you know, because he's crazy and maybe the only way you can get through to crazy people is by doing something so completely and utterly stupid." John slurred as he took a sip of his Guinness, "I live with a crazy person, he's certifiable, he has a bee hive on the roof... a _fucking bee hive_! He doesn't think that I know but I do but I didn't say anything because there's no reasoning with a crazy person. I mean, what could you say? "Please Sherlock, please don't keep bees on the roof" to which he would reply, "Well where do you propose I put them John?"

Suddenly John's phone buzzed and he reached for it so fast that he knocked over his pint, soaking the table top in alcohol. John scanned his inbox and saw that he had a new message... from Mycroft. It simply read:

_You broke his violin?_

John thrust the phone roughly into his pocket and ran his fingers through his hair, "He's never going to forgive me."

The bartender was silent while he began mopping up the spilled Guinness – which was dripping onto John's rain dampened jeans.

"So this mate?" the bartender said as he soaked up the alcohol with a dirty bar rag, "Is he a _special_ mate?"

John looked up and saw the bartender smiling at him slightly,

"I'm not gay." John said as he placed his hands flat on the bar, "I'm not gay, I like women, I enjoy having sex with women_ no, I _love _having sex with women." John said, his voice getting progressively louder.

"Alright mate." The bartender said.

"No it's not alright _mate_, the problem is my _mate_ because there are... because I want to..."

"You want to have sex with him?"

"No!" John said and he slammed his palms against the bar. He shook his head to reiterate his point, "He is the most irritating human being that I have ever met. He shows a complete lack of regard for me and my privacy and my sanity. He rarely cooks and when he does his usual motivation is because he wants to drug me with something or carryout an experiment or see what explosive diarrhoea does to a person. He texts me when I'm at work asking me to hand him a pen, or a tissue or to make him a cup of tea. He forces me to go on cases with him and then bitches about me blogging about them. He has set fire to the kitchen _twenty-three _times and he used to hide his cocaine in a human skull that he keeps on the mantel piece."

John scrubbed his face with his hands,

"I should hate him but I don't. I should want to have a normal, healthy, sane relationship but I don't. I want him. I want Sherlock Holmes in ways that I don't even understand and that's just crazy because I'm not gay and Sherlock doesn't_ do_ sex or relationships or... anything other than solve cases and work and being the world's most irritating consulting detective and flatmate."

The bartender blinked at John,

"I think you've had enough. Do you want me to call you a cab? There are a couple of decent hotels on the main road; they're cheap but not disgusting."

John shook his head as he got to his feet, wobbling slightly,

"I'm going home, I'm going home to 221B Baker Street and I'm going to have a conversation with my _mate_."

"Whoa," the bartender said as he placed his hand on John's shoulder, "You don't want to do that."

"I do, I need to."

"You're drunk and emotional and you'll regret it in the morning."

"I've already fucked up everything anyway," John said as he took out his wallet and handed the bartender a hand full of fivers, "It's not like I can make it worse."

"You can always make it worse... hey mate... you can always make it worse." The bartender called after John as he shrugged his arms into his coat – which was still slightly damp and cold – he stumbled off his stool and walked back out into the freezing night air.

His breath fogged out before him and John pulled his coat tighter around his trembling body. He'd been in damp clothing for too long and that combined with the ice cold winter air was causing him to feel slightly feverish.

John stumbled his way down an alley, bracing his hand against the brick wall by his side. It was good that he was drunk, he was always able to express his feelings better when more alcohol was pumping through his veins than blood. He would talk to Sherlock; he'd find a way to get Sherlock to forgive him. They'd been through worse; they'd fought before and exploded at each other and John had stormed off, gotten drunk and then returned late at night like nothing had happened.

Sherlock had drugged him and incapacitated him; he'd strapped him to a bomb and put him in the sights of a psychopathic criminal master mind... And John had forgiven him every time – with little complaint and...

John stopped walking. He should say all that to Sherlock. He should say it now, he couldn't wait until he got home because he was drunk and he knew that he was going to forget. He was just going to ring him now because drunken phone calls were always a good idea.

John pulled out his phone, the copious amount of alcohol in his system made the words on the screen wobble slightly but he was still able to select Sherlock's name from his list of contacts.

He placed the phone to his ear and listened to it ring.

"Come on Sherlock." John muttered as the phone went to voicemail. He tried again, mentally and verbally willing Sherlock to pick up.

On the third try instead of going to voicemail John heard Sherlock's disembodied voice,

"I'm not in the mood to talk right now John_"

"I know, I know, but please just listen to me, listen... listen... listen_"

"Yes John, that's exactly what I'm doing. I have ears and listening is generally known to be a relatively passive process."

"I need to say something."

"I gathered that_"

"Shut up for a minute and let me speak."

Sherlock was quiet for a moment,

"Have you been drinking?"

"Yes," John said as he tried to take a step forward but ended up stumbling and resting his shoulder against the brick wall, "But that's not the point, the point is that I'm sorry. Jesus, Sherlock I'm really, really sorry about smashing John like I did. And I don't know anything about violins but if you tell me what to get then I'll buy you another John, I'll buy you a _better _John."

"John," Sherlock said, his voice sounding slightly amused, "Do you have any idea what you're saying?"

"Of course, I might be drunk but I know what I'm saying... Sherlock..." John pressed his head against the cold wet brick of the wall and sucked in a lungful of freezing cold air, "Sherlock there's something that I want to say and I don't really know how to say it because I don't really know how I feel but I have to say something because it's driving me insane – and that's the main reason why I lashed out at you."

They were both silent and John took in another shuddering breath before he said,

"Please don't hate me for saying this but Sherlock I think that I might be... I think that I want to_"

Something that felt like a bee sting stabbed at John's neck. It hurt and he was about to reach up to feel the area of abused skin but he quickly realised that he couldn't. He couldn't move but he could feel warmth spreading from his neck and down his spine.

"Shhh_" he tried to say but his speech came out so slurred that he couldn't even pronounce his name. "Shheer_"

"John, are you alright?" John heard Sherlock ask.

He felt his knees begin to tremble and he knew that he was about to fall to the ground. A large, pale hand slid around his waist and splayed fingers stretched across his abdomen. He stared at it for a long moment, not quite sure what it was that he was looking at. He tried to touch the hand but his own weren't capable of moving.

"I'll take that." A quiet, cold voice whispered against his ear.

Icy fingers pried the phone from his hand and John could no long hear Sherlock's voice. His legs finally gave out and the person behind him held him up by hooking his arm around his waist. Slowly, John could feel himself being lowered towards the dirty, rain soaked ground. He was laid down face first so that his lips and nose were kissing the floor, he could taste the filth in his mouth and smell it in his nostrils.

He couldn't move his body, no matter how hard he tried. He simply had to lie there and listen to the voice above him speak down the phone to Sherlock,

"Mr Holmes, I have to say that I'm a little disappointed. I thought that our first conversation would have happened face to face. But then again I thought that you would have found me by now."

John felt a hard shoe slide beneath his ribs and slowly flip him onto his back.

The only part of John that could move was his eyes and as he lay there on the hard cold ground his eyes scanned the man in front of him.

He was deathly pale; the skin of his face and hands was almost a blinding shade of white. He had heterochromia, and John could see even in the dim light, that he had one blue eye and one that looked almost black. His hair was short and blonde, his lips thin, his frame slight and almost fragile looking. He stared down at John with a sort of deviant hunger that made John's heart rate spike.

"I thought that you were smarter than this," the man said as he slid one of his shoes up the length of the inside of John's leg, "I sent you a very clear message, in fact, it was embarrassingly easy to decipher. It was one step shy of just giving you a map with a cross marking the spot where you could find me."

Sherlock must have said something because the man smiled unnervingly at John,

"I'm still holding out hope. After all, I now have a double incentive for you considering I have your woman and your pet." The man's eyes travelled over John's body, lingering on a few choice places,

"I must say, he's rather pretty." The man said as he lowered himself onto the ground and straddled John's hips. The weight of the man's body pressing against him made John feel sick and he desperately wanted to get away.

"He's a pretty little pet, scared at the moment, but pretty none the less." His ice cold fingers traced John's lips, "Does he come running when you call?"

John could just make out the deep rumble of Sherlock's voice down the line but he couldn't work out what he was saying.

"I've injected him with a strong paralytic, he's totally helpless, I could do anything to him right now and he couldn't even scream. Usually I like to hear them scream but there's something rather thrilling about watching all their fear leak out of their eyes." The man said as he locked eyes with John, "He has such pretty eyes, not quite as pretty as yours Mr Holmes, but then I have a weakness for blue eyed boys. What colour are yours John? I can't quite tell, it's too dark..." the man said as he leaned in closer to John's face, so close that John could feel his breath on his lips.

"But he's a brave one, not willing to show me just how petrified he really is. Are you frightened Mr Holmes? I can't see your eyes but I think I can detect a slight tremor in your voice. Are you worried that I'm going to hurt him?"

Suddenly the man straightened up and placed one of his hands on John's abdomen, pressing down hard enough to make John internally cry out in pain.

"I've left you enough clues but because I'm a generous man I'll leave you one more." The man said as he reached behind him and pulled out a piece of heavy looking rectangular plastic. John didn't realise what it was until the man pressed a button and a long, thin blade flicked out. The man held up the blade to the light and turned it over in his hand to make it glint.

"One final clue Mr Holmes." The man said before he turned his body slightly and began to carve something into the brick wall beside John. The sound of the metal grinding against the brick seemed to link directly to John's pulse and with every scratch on the brick, his heart sped up.

"Would you like to speak to him? Relay some last words of solace or any declarations you would like to get off your chest?" The man asked absently, his tongue sticking out slightly in concentration as he continued to carve something into the wall.

"He wants to speak to you." The man said as he held out the phone to John and then smiled when John couldn't move to take it, "I'm sorry Mr Holmes, John doesn't seem capable of coming to the phone right now. Is there a message you would like for me to pass on to him?"

The man stopped carving and turned to stare at John,

"He says that he'll see you soon." The man said before he ended the called and slid it into his pocket.

John felt tears burn his eyes and blur his vision. He so desperately wanted to hear Sherlock say that out loud, to hear his assurance that he was coming for him, that he would find him before this man did to him what he had done to all those women that he'd left naked and mutilated in some desolate field. He wanted Sherlock – _the _Sherlock Holmes – to tell him that he wasn't going to die like this, at the hands of a mad man.

"Hey now." The man said as his cold fingers brushed away the tears in John's eyes, "Don't cry. I want you to see this." And then John felt the man's weight leave his hips and then he felt himself being dragged across the ground. A hand slid beneath his head and forced it up slightly so he could see what the man had carved into the brick wall. It was the initials "JW".

The man rested John's head back on the ground and John just stared up at the black, starless sky. He gave up fighting the tears and simply let them roll down the sides of his face. It was all he could do, he couldn't speak or move or make any sort of sound... but he could cry.

It wasn't the first time in his life that he thought that he was about to die, but it was the first time that he had felt this disempowered. He didn't want to die like this, to be just another clue in Sherlock's case, another pawn pushed around in a game being played by men much smarter than he.

This wasn't how he was supposed to die. He was Captain John Hamish Watson; he had served with the Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers, had been deployed in Afghanistan, was a trauma surgeon, a general practitioner of medicine and had saved the lives of hundreds of civilians and soldiers. He was important and this was not going to be the way that he died.

He refused to die like this.

"Don't worry," the man said as he came back into John's line of sight, "I promise it won't hurt a bit."

And then he slid a needle into John's neck and the world began to grow dark. John kept his eyes open for as long as he could, just staring up at that dark London sky wishing that he could see the stars.

As John began to fade and the world grew darker and colder around him he thought he could hear Sherlock's voice in his mind telling him that he'd see him soon.

_John_, Sherlock's voice rang out clear and strong inside John's head, _I'll see you soon._

_I'll see you soon._

_I'll... see you... soon._

_I'll..._

And then the world went black.


	8. Clarity

_"You must read, you must persevere, you must sit up nights, you must inquire, and exert the utmost power of your mind. If one way does not lead to the desired meaning, take another; if obstacles arise, then still another; until, if your strength holds out, you will find that clear which at first looked dark." _

_- Giovanni Boccaccio_

* * *

_Two and a half hours of rainfall, stopped at approximately 7.15pm, alleyway is the only direct footpath leading from the recreational ground to the main road. Twenty-three distinct shoe prints, John has relatively small feet, wears plastic soled shoes, size eight and a half, slight weight displacement as he favours left side due to phantom pain in right limb._

_ Drag marks extending six meters from the impact point to the street, slight blood pooling at the mouth of the alleyway, no more than 15ml, obviously not from arterial bleed so more than likely from a small laceration caused by a hand or insignificant appendage being dragged against this piece of broken glass. Minimal blood loss suggests heart rate was low – most likely attributed to a mixture of the paralytic and sedative__

"Would you like for me to lend you my eyes – metaphorically speaking - ?"

Sherlock gritted his teeth. He had been staring at the same patch of concrete for the past ten minutes and all that he was certain of was that this was the spot where John had been drugged and kidnapped.

"How did you find me so fast, don't you usually go to your OA meeting on a Wednesday?"

"Something really must be upsetting you," Mycroft said as he emerged out of the shadows and came to stand by Sherlock's side, "You only comment on my weight when you're in a foul mood."

"Maybe it's just because you're abdomen is looking startling bloated this evening."

"I rest my case."

Sherlock took a measured step away from his brother and pressed his palms firmly together, "Mycroft are you aware that I need something to stimulate my adrenal glands to increased the production and release of adrenaline into my blood stream to help to facilitate my thought process_"

"Sherlock are you aware that when you get nervous you start talking like a post graduate medical student and stop using full stops?"

Sherlock pressed his palms harder together,

"I was simply trying to illustrate the fact that I can either shoot up a few grams of cocaine or I can punch you in the face. Both would achieve the desired goal of making me feel better."

"Point made, however neither are going to happen under my watch."

"Why are you here?" Sherlock snapped as he finally turned to stare at his brother, "It took me thirty-seven minutes to find this place – and I knew what I was looking for – how did you find me so fast?"

Mycroft flexed his fingers around the handle of his umbrella, seemingly hesitant to admit something,

"After I found out that you flew to Islamabad... without me knowing," he said tensely as if the admission had made his jaw lock, "I decided to put a GPS tracking device on your phone."

Sherlock's eyes flashed black with rage,

"How_"

"Don't act so outraged brother, you're lucky I haven't tagged you like a cat by now."

Sherlock bit the inside of his cheek to prevent himself from rising to the bate,

"Do you often follow me? Or is it only when you're in the area looking for an all night bakery?"

The eerie smile quivered slightly but still remained on Mycroft's lips,

"This is a hot spot," Mycroft said as he waved in the general direction of the surrounding area, "drug dealers frequent this, and the surrounding, alleyways. They shift cannabis, heroin and crack cocaine by the kilo. I get an alert on my phone whenever you enter into an area that poses a potential threat to your sobriety_"

"My sobriety is not in danger, John is in danger_"

"Those things are not mutually exclusive."Mycroft said as he fixed Sherlock with a steady look, "I like your friend Sherlock, I think that he is a good influence on you, he keeps you fed and sober and clothed – apart for when you choose to grace the rooms of Buckingham Palace." Mycroft said with a little acidic twinge in his voice that clearly conveyed the idea that he wasn't quite over Sherlock roaming the royal halls without pants.

"But he also impairs your judgement. Because of him you make rash decisions."

"I don't."

"You are standing in the middle of an alleyway at almost one o'clock in the morning wearing nothing but a set of pyjamas and a coat. You aren't even wearing shoes."

Sherlock blinked before he looked down at his sodden sock clad feet. He hadn't noticed, he'd walked across almost six miles of wet London pavement and hadn't noticed that he wasn't wearing any shoes. He wasn't even wearing his own socks; they belonged to John that's why they were cutting off blood supply to his feet.

"I got a call Mycroft from a man, a serial killer who I have been trying to catch for months. He told me that he had my_ John, he told me that he had John and that he had injected him with a paralytic and that this was my last chance to find him. Forgive me if I didn't take pause to dress appropriately."

Mycroft shook his head slightly almost as if he was... disappointed,

"This entire case has been an embarrassment to the name of Holmes, you have _embarrassed _me and you have shocked me with your own ineptitude. You, _the_ Sherlock Holmes, Scotland Yard's only consulting detective, the man who can solve a murder case by glancing at a police report, you have missed every clue offered to you in this case. You missed that killer's – quite frankly – pathetic attempt at a hidden message. You failed to anticipate that this man, who is obviously trying to attack you and the people that you care for, would go after John – when Irene Adler wasn't incentive enough - and that is why John is now in danger. You failed to protect your friend because you were too encumbered with emotion to see the situation clearly." Mycroft said, his tone rose to a level that almost sounded impassioned.

"Do you know where he is?"

"No." Mycroft said after a moment's hesitation.

"Mycroft_"

"I don't know where he is Sherlock, if I did then I wouldn't be having this conversation with you. I would have sent a group of special operatives to retrieve John, kill Irene Adler and bring in both this serial killer and Moriarty. But I don't know where he is – mainly because I don't care – but partly because I have far more important things to worry about." Mycroft took a step forward, the metallic tap of the tip of his umbrella chipping the concrete made Sherlock wince slightly,

"It's a puzzle, nothing more, nothing less. Take John and Irene out of the equation and simply look at the facts. Stop acting like a normal human being and start acting like Sherlock Holmes otherwise they'll both be dead and I shall be your sole ally in the world."

Sherlock stared at his brother for a moment before he closed his eyes and searched for the switch. As a child standing in the playground of his private school listening to the sneers and hisses of his fellow classmates as they mocked him, Sherlock had trained himself to turn off his emotions. It made sense to him, the only way to remain calm in the face of fear was to simply stop being afraid. All he had to do was visualise a switch, concentrate hard enough and then reach out and flick it off.

He did this now and the second he turned them off the fog began to clear, his fear began to fade and could finally see the door to his mind palace. He hadn't seen it in a while, not since he had started this case. The sight of the smooth dark wood and shiny brass handle made his body sing.

He stopped thinking about John being scared and hurt and alone. He stopped thinking about the sound his violin had made as it smashed against the wall or about what John had been about to say before he had been incapacitated. He stopped thinking about Irene.

His mind was clear. He reached out through the residual fog and grasped hold of the handle, even though this was all in his imagination, the metal still felt cool against his palm.

Calm settled over him as he turned the handle and opened the door.

Blinding light shattered the darkness and thoughts swarmed at him like flies, each one jabbing at him, biting at his skin, urging him to think, think, _think__

_The women, each one with a slight abrasion above the left cheek bone from evenly distributed impact pressure rather than blunt force trauma which_ not important, it's part of the signature, it's his pathology._

_White power under the nails, not grainy, but fine like chalk_ no, not chalk, flour, refined flour. And then there was the purple stains on the feet and knees, the hair had signs of torn purple petals, some variant of vegetation or__

Sherlock opened his eyes and said, almost joyfully,

"_Agrostemma githago_."

Mycroft smiled, "My biological terminology is a little rusty. Care to elaborate?"

"I'm surprised brother," Sherlock said almost joyously as his moment of defined clarity and finely tuned deductive skills made his body and brain feel shiny and clean for the first time in months, "I appear to know something that you don't."

"Oh don't sound so gleeful." Mycroft said as he rolled his eyes, "If I was so inclined I could work out_"

"You do that," Sherlock said as he cracked the back off his phone, "Once you've worked it out you can meet me there and then all four of us can have a picnic." Sherlock said as he flicked the tiny GPS device in Mycroft's direction.

"Sherlock, where are you going?" Mycroft called as Sherlock began to walk in the direction of the main road.

"Home," Sherlock called back, "You can't fight a serial killer shoeless."

"Sherlock_"

"Thank you for the pep talk Mycroft," Sherlock said as the squelching sound of his sodden socks became distant, "It was inspiring."

Mycroft sighed deeply and, not for the first time in his existence, he wondered what it would be like to be an only child.

* * *

Even before he was fully conscious John could feel pain radiating from the base of his skull to the back of his eyes. His head felt light and for some time he simply floated in the pain, internally wincing when the dull ache became stabbing agony. He was making noises, deep throated groans and whimpering little moans but he wasn't conscious, not quite, not yet.

He was cold and he could feel his body trembling, shivering to increase his core body temperature. He wanted to curl himself into a ball, to hug his knees into his chest to stop these incessant shivers.

"Hush." He faintly made out the soft sound of a voice, "It's alright."

He tried to open his eyes but he couldn't, his eyelids were too heavy, they felt swollen.

A warm hand lightly rested against his cheek and then the side of his neck, its warmth and softness soothed him slightly.

"Shhh," he tried to say but his throat was too sore.

The hand stroked his hair away from his face and traced the fragile skin beneath his eyes.

"Shher..." he coughed a few times, "Sherlock?" He managed to slur.

Someone laughed_ no, a _woman _laughed. He could tell, he was coming into consciousness now and was fighting his way through the darkness and the pain.

"Men always reveal their darkest desires when they're drugged up. It's a shame I couldn't stick around to listen to Mr Holmes's inebriated revelations. Did he talk about me? Did he call out my name?"

John was winning the fight because his eyelids opened a crack and he saw a face blur before him.

"Are you missing him?" The voice cooed condescendingly as the hand played with his fringe, "I have to admit that I've missed him a little. But I'm sure he'll be here soon so don't you worry."

John tried to speak but the pain behind his eyes throbbed and he whimpered. Suddenly he felt his body moving, being slid across the ground. He tried to fight the hands that were moving him because every jolt sent sharp stabs of pain through his skull.

Just as he thought that he was about to start crying the pain abated as his head was rested against something soft and warm.

"He might have nicer hair but I have more comfortable thighs. I know that I'm no substitute but you'll have to make do with me for the moment." The voice said and John could feel the soft hand return to his hair.

"Do you two enjoy snuggling up on the sofa? I can picture it now. Does he like to be the big spoon or the little spoon?"

John turned his head so that his cheek was resting against the soft, warm thing. This time, when he tried, his eyes fluttered open and after blinking twice he was able to focus on the world around him. He soon realised that his head was resting in someone's lap, a woman's lap. His eyes travelled up, slowly tracing the dimensions of a woman's abdomen, chest, throat and...

"Hello Dr John Hamish Watson, you look terrible."

John said nothing, he simply stared into the eyes of Irene Adler.


	9. Philanthropy

_"What we have done for ourselves alone dies with us; what we have done for others and the world remains and is immortal." _

_― Albert Pike_

* * *

John realised, as he stared unblinkingly at the woman in front of him, that he had never really looked at Irene Adler – not even the first time they had met. He had always been too busy watching Sherlock watch her to really notice her himself. But now, as he lay staring up at her, he started to see similarities between her face and Sherlock's.

They both had a light in their eyes, almost as if their inner intelligence and thought process burnt so bright that it couldn't help but shine through their irises. Her eyes were blue, darker than Sherlock's, but the similarity still remained. Both were deathly pale – appearing almost corpse like in the blinding sunlight – and both held a slightly sardonic lift to their lips, almost as if they were constantly amused by the utter ineptitude of all those around them.

John watched now as her lips curled into a full blown smile,

"Are you going to say something? Or have the drugs rendered you incapable of speech?"

John blinked; bringing himself back from the brink of his ponderings. He cleared his throat, tasting the metallic tang of blood on his tongue, before he said,

"Where are we?"

"Take a look." She said as she gently turned his head away from her face to their surroundings.

The room was large but made to feel claustrophobic and small by all the low hanging wooden beams and the massive wheel type contraption that sat in the middle of the floor. The walls were made from grey, sedimentary looking stone and the floor was covered in long, dark strips of wood. There were several small windows scattered around the room, each one letting in blinding early morning light. The air was musty and smelt like the inside of a garden shed.

John turned his eyes back to the massive wheel,

"Is that… are we…" he turned his head to look at Irene, "Are we in a windmill?"

She nodded and cast an eye around the room disdainfully,

"Not a functioning one but a windmill never the less. Not the most glamorous place to be held captive."

"What would've you preferred?"

She shrugged, "A dungeon of sorts."

Yet another similarity she and Sherlock shared: a warped sense of normality.

"How long have you been here?" John asked as his eyes traced the relatively ragged and dirty state of her clothes.

"About a fortnight. I was already being imprisoned by a group of IRA members in Dublin so everything has sort of rolled into one."

"Wait," John said as he tried to sit himself up but found that his head hurt too much, "This serial killer stole you from under a group of IRA men?"

Irene shook her head, "He didn't _steal me_, I had just gotten myself out of there and was heading for Paris when he comes up behind me and injects me with a sedative. The next thing I'm aware of is waking up here."

"How come you haven't been able to escape yet?"

Irene nodded her head in the direction of a camera that was fastened to the wall,

"They've been watching me constantly. Every time I attempt to do anything – no matter how discreet – one of them comes in and tasers me." And, to illustrate her point, she unfastened the first few buttons on her shirt to reveal several nasty looking spherical bruises and small, circle shaped gashes.

"Jesus." John muttered as he turned his head away and looked up at one of the wooden beams, "Who has us?"

"Well obviously there's Moriarty and then there's the androgynous looking, heterochromatic sadist who likes sticking needles in people."

"Do you know who he is?"

Irene shook her head,

"I think he's just a killer who Moriarty has commissioned to do his dirty work. He's a vicious little fucker, really enjoys hitting me with that taser gun, he lets me writhe around for a few minutes, his eyes shining with excitement and then just rips the barbs right out of my skin." Irene said as she subconsciously winced in remembrance.

John's eyes traced the curve of her neck and saw yellowish bruises – about the size of finger tips – marring her delicate skin. As his eyes travelled down the side of her left shoulder he saw a faint imprint of a set of teeth.

"This isn't going to end well is it?" John asked, more of a statement of fact than a question, as he continued to stare at Irene's abused flesh, "People don't kidnap the loved ones of someone to lure them to a secluded windmill just to have a chat."

"Depends on if they have a penchant for being melodramatic."

John's eyes slid from the teeth marks on Irene's shoulder to look her in the eyes. Although she – like Sherlock – kept an intricate mask fastened almost constantly around her face to conceal her emotions, John saw a flicker of resignation in her eyes and he knew, in that moment, that there was a distinct possibility that all three of them would die here.

"Don't worry," she said as she refastened her shirt, a smirk playing on her lips, "I won't let them hurt you."

John must have unknowingly made some sound of annoyance because Irene raised her eyebrow at him,

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing."

"You tutted. People usually don't tut without provocation."

John sighed, "I'm fed up of people treating me like I'm some sort of moron. Like I don't have the ability to take care of myself or make my own decisions. I might not be a genius or be able to work out what brand of shampoo someone uses just by looking at their thumbs, but I'm not an idiot."

"I take it we're talking about Sherlock?"

"Of course I'm talking about Sherlock. Before I met him my life was a lot less complicated. I never got kidnapped by serial killers, nobody strapped bombs to my chest, I never accidently ate a human toe because _someone _dropped it in a yoghurt pot and couldn't be bothered to take it out."

Irene chuckled and began playing absentmindedly with his hair again. John was still too drugged up and woozy to resist and so he simply lay there staring up at one of the wooden beams.

"I know how to take care of myself, I don't need Sherlock Holmes to ride in and rescue me."

"Doesn't mean that you don't want him to."

"You don't know what I want."

"Oh I think I do – and I _definitely_ know what Sherlock wants."

"How can you possibly?" John asked as he finally sat up, the action made his head spin and for a few brief seconds he thought that he was going to pass out. He took in a few deep breaths before focussing his eyes back on Irene,

"How can you possibly know what Sherlock wants? You may have known him for a year or so but you've only spent a collective few hours with him. You haven't lived with him, you haven't had to deal with his bipolar type mood swings, or clean up after him, or cook for him, or wander around after him to make sure that he isn't doing something dangerous or illegal, or bail him out of prison when he's gone too far and irritated the wrong person. I've been doing all those things for almost three years and even _I _don't know what Sherlock wants or how he thinks or why he is the way that he is. How is it possible for you to have such insight into the dark recesses of his soul?"

Irene had been watching his little rant with a growing smile on her lips – one which almost irritated John to the point of violence. Irene rested her head against the wall and just stared at him for a long moment, her expression was a mixture of condescension and slight amusement.

"I asked you once before if you were jealous about the... connection that Sherlock and I share. You said no and I honestly think that you believed that, you forced yourself to believe the lie because the truth was just a little too painful to acknowledge."

She watched him for a few more seconds before she leaned forward and said quietly,

"Do you want to know what we did together in Islamabad?"

John felt his skin grow suddenly cold. There was a glint in her eye that stirred a sickening feeling in the pit of John's stomach. He didn't think that he could deal with her telling him that they'd had sex, he wouldn't be able to handle her – no doubt gratuitously detailed – descriptions of what she had done to Sherlock and what he had done to her.

Her words in the flat swirled through his mind:

_I would have you right here, right now, until you begged for mercy twice._

Had she made him beg for mercy? The idea of her hands on him, trailing down his chest, tangled in his hair, tongue in his mouth, thighs hugging the sides of his hips...

It made John feel like his brain was being rubbed raw.

"I don't want to know."

"Oh I think that you do, I think that you've wanted to find out the answer to that question since you found out that I was alive. However, you couldn't ask Sherlock because that would open up doors that I don't think you're ready to walk through just yet."

"I don't want to know." John hissed as he pushed himself as far away from her as his lethargic body could manage.

"There was a lot of running away from men with machetes," Irene said, adjusting her position so that her spine was centred more comfortably against the wall, "we stole a couple of cars, drove through the night, did some more running and then we shared a packet of Walker's salt and vinegar crisps as we waited for my boat to come in."

"Don't mock me_"

"I'm not mocking you John." She said, almost as if she were talking to a small child who was having a tantrum.

"You think that we had sex. You think that after he rescued me from that terrorist cell he took me to some hotel and fucked me with the intensity of a man possessed. Or maybe you think that he couldn't wait to get me to a hotel, maybe he just thrust me up against a wall and had his way with me."

John tried to turn away from her but she stretched out her leg and impeded his movements by trapping his thighs beneath her calf muscle.

"It never happened John." She said, slowly annunciating each word, "I like Sherlock, I find his mind and his intellect sexy and his acerbic personality incredibly attractive. If Sherlock had come alone to my house the first time we met, if I hadn't known about you, or met you or seen the two of you interact, then I would have taken great pleasure in using Sherlock Holmes in all the most depraved ways that a woman can use a man. I would have loved to test his limits, to see how far I could push him before he snapped. I would have enjoyed finding out whether he liked to take his pleasure straight up or with a little pain."

Her eyes glinted again and it made John shudder, "But he didn't come alone and I met you and saw the way that he looks at you – at the way that you look at him."

She stared at him and, for a moment, John thought that he saw the edge of the mask slip slightly from her face,

"Love is not a thing that I like to mess with John. It comes around so rarely in life – for some it doesn't come at all. Only the most evil of creatures destroy an emotion that strong and, contrary to what you might think, I am not evil."

John looked at her and saw that she was in complete earnest, she wasn't mocking him... she was trying to confide in him.

"When we were waiting for my boat to come in, we just sat on this crumbling stone wall and watched the sun rise over the ocean. I was joking with him about you and about his life back at Baker Street and I watched as his face changed. He looked sad and tired – haggard even – as if the weight of the world was waiting to crush him when he returned to England."

She smiled and eyed John with a look that almost bordered on fondness,

"I think he knows how he feels about you, I think he's known for a while and he has resigned himself to the belief that you could never feel the same way. And, just like you have been rally against your own feelings, too afraid to talk to Sherlock about them, Sherlock has been doing the same. He would be your friend John, even though he wants more, he would be contented with just being your friend. And that, to me, suggests that this potential thing that you have is worth exploring."

John's mouth had grown very dry. Seemingly, each word from her had caused his heart rate to increase to the point of pain. His face felt warm and he knew that he was blushing bright red, not from embarrassment, but rather from discomfort.

"How do you know what he wants?" John asked, this time his voice had lost the accusatory edge.

Irene smiled a delicate, almost genuine, smile,

"We're similar. The connection that we share is not based on love – it's not even based on friendship – it's merely based on the similarities that we share. That first time we met it was like someone had put a mirror in front of my face," she said as she illustrated her point by holding up her hand and spreading her fingers so that she could see pieces of John's face and he could see fragments of hers.

"It was calming and easy to be around him. We think the same, our thoughts travel at relatively the same speed, we see the world, and the people in it, as a mere puzzle for us to solve. The main difference between us is the fact that he has you and I have no one."

She said this without remorse or pain, but rather as a simple statement of fact.

"When we get out of this – and I swear to you that we will because Irene Adler does not die in a _windmill_." She said disdainfully "When we get out of this I suggest that you have a sit down with Sherlock and tell him what's been going on in your head. Whether you two choose to start fucking is completely up to you however..." and her eyes slid to his and she smiled salaciously, "I would really like to watch."

John's blush had grown painful and he pressed his palms to his burning cheeks to try and cool them down.

"Promise me that if you make it out of this alive then you'll tell Sherlock how you feel."

John took his palms away from his cheeks,

"And what if I die?"

Irene's lips twitched into a smirk,

"Well I think that you know the answer to that. Unless you're a strong believer in reincarnation or rebirth then if you die your secret will be taken with you to the grave and Sherlock's heart will break with, not just the loss of his friend, but also from the pain of never finding out whether you felt the same way about him."

"Is it your intention to depress me?"

"Not my deliberate one. My deliberate intention is to get you to promise me that you'll talk to Sherlock_"

"Why does it matter to you?"

Irene shrugged, "I'm a philanthropist, I like helping people."

"I_"

"Just promise me," she said exasperatedly, "If I end up sacrificing myself to save your life – as any self proclaimed philanthropist should – I would like to know that I martyred myself for a reason. So _promise me_."

John swallowed, unable to break eye contact. If she was telling the truth - which John believed that she was - then all he could do was gain a new part of Sherlock rather than lose him altogether. It took him a moment to form the words before he said,

"I promise."

And for one brief, illogical – completely insane – moment, John half hoped that he would die so that he wouldn't have to fulfill the promise that he had just committed himself to.


	10. Manipulation

_"Belief can be manipulated. Only knowledge is dangerous." _  
_― Frank Herbert _

* * *

"What is it that you don't understand? I need a car, it doesn't need to be flashy, it doesn't need to have a radio. All it needs is four functioning wheels and a full tank of petrol."

The man behind the counter stared back stoned faced at Sherlock,

"I understand what you want sir, but I can't give you a car."

"Why not? I have money, look." Sherlock said as he thrust a handful of notes under the man's nose.

"I can't give you a car because you don't have a valid driver's licence."

"I don't need a valid driver's licence."

"The law says different_"

"The law is flawed and rife with gross inaccuracies, I should know, I work for the police department."

The man's eyebrows shot up to his hair line, "_You're _a policeman?"

Sherlock snorted, "Egotistical I might be, underachieving I am not. I didn't say that I was a policeman, I said that I worked for the police department – Scotland Yard to be precise, not that it matters because you're obviously not listening to what I have to say_"

"Sir," the man said as he popped another piece of nicotine gum into his mouth, "I cannot rent you a car if you don't show me your valid driver's licence and a secondary form of ID."

Sherlock stifled a sigh of annoyance. He had had a number of driver's licences over the years – some of them even legitimate – but after accumulating a few thousand pounds worth of speeding tickets, traffic violations and practically pissing off every policeman in London, he had been put on some sort of black list and had been indefinitely prohibited from driving any vehicle that moved faster than 5mph.

But then Sherlock did have his ways of getting around any sort legal impediment that prevented him from doing what he wanted. However he didn't have the time right now to contact his forger so instead he settled on using his most reliable – and accessible – tool...

"Your soon to be ex-wife recently started having sex with a younger man." Sherlock said after about four seconds of examining the man in front of him.

"Excuse me?" The man practically hissed – which was all the added confirmation that Sherlock needed.

"In the time that I have been standing here you've removed and replaced your wedding band four times suggesting that you and your wife have been going through a separation – her choice not yours – and that recently she's filed for a divorce and is waiting for you to sign the papers and end your marriage."

"How_"

"You take the ring off, hold it in your palm and then look down at your finger. It's obvious that you're trying to come to terms with the idea that soon your marriage will be completely dissolved. The fact that you keep putting it back on suggests that you don't want it to be – it's hardly a difficult deduction."

The man looked down at his hand briefly and Sherlock could tell that he was caught between wanting to hear more and wanting to punch Sherlock in the face.

"How did you know about the... um... younger man?"

Sherlock stopped himself from smiling – not wanting to appear too pleased with himself – "You recently got your ear pierced, the inflammation around the ring suggests that the your body is still trying to reject the foreign object. You've been working out, lifting weights to be specific, to try and increase muscle density to take on the physique of a younger man – most likely to replicate the body of the young man who your wife is currently having athletic sex with_

"_Athletic__"

"Never mind," Sherlock said with a wave of his hand – they didn't have time for that – "Your movement is sluggish and you wince every time you move your arms which tells me that there is a build up of lactic acid in your muscles – caused by your recent weight lifting session – which suggests that you've been pushing yourself rather excessively of late, no doubt to meet some personally imposed deadline. It's obvious that you're trying to appear younger before your divorce is finalised so that you can prove to your wife that you can change and thus win her back. Well done, you were right, you can, however you're not going to do it by investing in a pair of stone washed jeans."

The man's eyes flickered with what looked like a mixture of hope and hesitation, "Are you some sort of psychic?"

"Psychics – just like ghosts, fairies and magic – don't exist."

"Then how can you know all this?"

Sherlock felt one of his headaches – brought about by the utter ineptitude of the rest of the human race – beginning to burn behind his eyes, "I observe, you should try it sometime. Anyway, that is not the point; ask me how you can get your wife back."

The man hesitated slightly before he asked, "How can I get my wife back?"

Sherlock – who was briefly encouraged by the fact that this man was so easily manipulated – said, "Your wife's lover is also sleeping with your daughter."

"What!" The man roared and Sherlock could see blood start to rise in his cheeks.

Sherlock sighed, not for the first time wishing that people could simply open their eyes and see what was obviously laid before them,

"Estimating your age against the age at which you got married means that your daughter is probably around twenty to twenty-three – roughly the same age as your wife's lover."

The man's mouth fell open so wide that his piece of gum fell out and onto the counter,

"She's just turned twenty-two, how the hell did you_"

"It doesn't matter." Sherlock snapped, his impatience starting to get the better of him, "All that matters is that today is Tuesday, your wife will be at work and your daughter will be at home_"

"How_?"

"You have dog hairs all over your overalls and a faint urine stain on the hem of your trousers so obviously you and your wife brought an errant dog a few years back. I'm assuming that because you and your wife are pathetically sentimental you share the dog between two houses. You have a schedule taped to the wall behind you detailing when and where the dog will be during the week. Today is Tuesday and the schedule states that _Pongo – _who I assume is your dog –is staying with _Julia_ – who I assume is your wife – but is being looked after by _Trish_ – who I assume is your daughter – because _Julia _is working until five tonight!"

Sherlock took in a deep breath. This really was getting incredibly tiring. Next time he would just Google how to hot wire a car and be done with it.

"I don't have time to explain to you how I know that your wife's lover is also sleeping with your daughter because I have my suspicions that he is currently doing your daughter as we speak and, if you have a hope in hell of catching them in the act I suggest that you run. Now."

The man just stood staring at Sherlock, his mouth still hanging open slightly, "But I don't see how that..." the man tried but then was rendered ineffable by his own stupidity and had to start again, "I don't see how that will help me get my wife back?"

"Oh for the love of God," Sherlock said as he slammed his palms down against the countertop in exasperation, "if you tell your wife that her lover is also doing your daughter then one could only assume that she would dump him and – taking in the sight of that stunning earring of yours – she'll be compelled to fall back in love with you, rip up the divorce papers and move herself – and _Pongo _– back in your house."

"That's great!" The man beamed like the proverbial village idiot.

Sherlock resisted the urge to roll his eyes, "But none of this will matter unless you run to your wife's house right now and catch them in the act."

When the man did nothing but continue to stare vacantly at him, Sherlock made of show of looking at his wrist watch,

"You never know, he could be a premature ejaculator, he might be finished in sixty seconds. Tick, tock, tick, tock..."

The man's eyes darted wildly between Sherlock. When he had still made no move to leave Sherlock opened his mouth to start counting down the seconds,

"Forty-three, forty-two, forty_"

Suddenly the man bolted from behind the counter and ran from the shop and down the street.

Sherlock rested his head against the counter for a second, briefly basking in his trivial success. He was always right and the affirmation of this made Sherlock relax for the first time since he and John had had their... altercation in the flat. He flinched slightly as he unintentionally replayed the scene in his mind: John's anger – so potent it had seemingly took possession of all his limbs and features – the feeling of his violin being snatched from his hand, the ear splitting sound of splintering wood, John's quiet apology as he had slipped away, out of the flat and into the clutches of a sadistic...

_This was counterproductive_, Sherlock thought as his head snapped up from the counter and his mind abruptly shut off the memory of their fight. He had no time to dwell, to feel – dare he say – _upset. _Sherlock Holmes didn't get upset, he wasn't a child, it wasn't as if someone had taken his favourite toy_

Before he could dwell too much on_ that_ particular thought, Sherlock reached out and plucked up a car key from the cork board that hung above the cash register. He turned the key over in his hand and saw the licence plate number embossed on the plastic in Tipp-ex.

It didn't take him long to locate the small blue Honda to which the key belonged. The early morning sun was dazzling and he had to shield his eyes as he slid into the front seat. The leather upholstery was ice cold against his back and bottom and as he adjusted the rear view mirror he caught sight of residual crisp crumbs clinging to the creases in-between the backseat cushions. There had been a family in this car, Sherlock could still smell the sickly sent of apple juice and baby formula.

He rolled down the windows, despite the cold morning air, and glanced at his watch again:

It was ten to eight. He smiled, he was ahead of schedule.

* * *

As the sun set the temperature inside the windmill fell just below freezing. The bare windows and the stone walls seemed to suck in all the cold night air until both John and Irene were left shivering. The moon was full that night so the room was illuminated by beams of pale white light.

John's teeth were chattering and as he exhaled he could see his breath fog out before him like smoke. "That's it," John said as he pulled the lapels of his jacket tighter around him in a vain attempt to keep himself warm, "both my arse cheeks have now gone completely numb."

"Lucky you, I can still feel mine." Irene mumbled as she shifted uncomfortably.

"How have you been able to put up with this for two weeks?"

"I spent seven years living in Alaska when I was a child," Irene said as she closed her eyes and rested her head against the wall, "_that_ was cold, this is more of an inconvenient chill."

John turned his head to look at her. She was only wearing a thin floral blouse and a pair of jeans. In the pale light he could see the thousands of goose bumps that covered the expanse of her exposed chest and arms. Her body was trembling and John could hear the quiet sound of her teeth chattering. The cold had also caused her nipples to harden and John could see them pushing against the thin fabric of her shirt.

"Is that why it's so hard for you?" Irene asked, her eyes still closed, a small smirk playing on her lips.

"What?" John asked as he tore his attention away from her breasts.

"You're attracted to women. You like the shape of a woman's body, you like the curves and the softness. And yet, now you find yourself getting hard for a man who practically has the dimensions of a long plank of wood."

"I... How did you_?"

"I'm somewhat clairvoyant when it comes to my breasts, I can always sense when someone is looking at them. I remember you took a rather intense interest in them the first time we met – I don't think Sherlock was entirely sure what he was looking at."

Irene opened her eyes, the pale moonlight made them look almost as clear as polished sea glass, "Tell me what you find attractive about him."

"Who?" John asked in a pathetic attempt to deflect her question.

Irene's eyebrow arched in incredulity, "You find more than one man attractive? My, my John, you're turning out to be rather a dark horse."

John began bouncing his legs to try and increase the circulation to his numb feet,

"I'm not attracted to men."

"No, you're simply attracted to Sherlock and I want to know why."

"I don't want to talk about this."

"Why not? It seems like the perfect thing for us to discuss. I'm gay, you're straight, we both enjoy fucking women and yet we would both like to fuck Sherlock. I think that's quite a conversation starter. We should take this opportunity to compare notes. I'm personally rather fond of his hair – there's always something incredibly sexy about a man who refuses to conform to the basic standards of personal grooming."

"He shaves." John said in Sherlock's defence.

"Don't deflect John." Irene admonished as a wicked grin spread across her face, "Are you seriously going to tell me that you've never fantasised about grabbing hold of handful of those crazed locks? It must be almost torturous to see him in the morning, wearing nothing but sleep creased pyjamas and seeing that hair of his looking insanely tangled."

John tried not to but now that she had brought it up it was impossible not to think about Sherlock in the morning, wandering out of the dark pit that was his bedroom, his eyes slightly vacant, cheeks flushed, hair tangled and...

"Is it the hair? Or is it that purple shirt that he wears_ or the coat! God forgive me, how could I forget about the coat."Irene asked, the amused tone in her voice betrayed just how much she was enjoying this, "Oh come on John, tell me what it is about Sherlock that makes you tingle in places that you shouldn't."

John was about to tell Irene – in no eloquent terms – to piss off, when a thin beam of light shone through the slit beneath the opposing door. Everything fell incredibly still and for a few brief seconds all John could hear was the sound of Irene's breathing.

Something creaked, perhaps a floor board behind the door, and then John heard the metallic sound of a key being slid into a lock and the snap of two deadbolts being pulled aside. Although he couldn't be sure, John thought that he saw Irene shift closer towards him. He swallowed against the fast forming thickness in his throat and watched as the door opened and synthetic light flooded the room.

A silhouetted figure stood in the doorway and it reminded John of all those Hammer Horror films he had watched as a child where shadows would elongate and contort the grotesque features of a monster to make it appear more than what it was. This was a different sort of monster though and as John's eyes adapted to the light he could make out the face of Jim Moriarty.


	11. This is the End My Only Friend

_This is the end_  
_Beautiful friend_  
_This is the end_  
_My only friend, the end_  
_Of our elaborate plans, the end_  
_Of everything that stands, the end_  
_No safety or surprise, the end_  
_I'll never look into your eyes...again_

- _The Doors_

* * *

The air seemed to fall still. Moriarty didn't move – he didn't even seem to be breathing – he simply stared vacantly at John, almost as if he was looking through him and at the bare wall behind his head. He was clad in a dark blue suit, his feet were shoeless and as he padded across the room John could hear the sound of his socks softly swishing against the concrete. He stopped about a meter away and sat down cross legged on the floor. This close, John could clearly see his face and the dark shadows that fell across his cheeks seemed to swallow up his eyes making them look like two black chasms.

"I had hoped," Moriarty said as he played with the cuff of his suit jacket, "that you would have gotten the hint by now."

When he didn't elaborate John asked, "What hint?"

"That Sherlock Holmes is not a man that you should have as an acquaintance – let alone a close friend." Moriarty cocked his head like a quizzical puppy, "Why didn't you pack up and leave after that little incident at the swimming pool?"

John's mouth was extremely dry but he didn't want to give Moriarty the satisfaction of seeing him swallow, "I'm loyal."

Moriarty snorted, "Boring." He said in a sing song voice, "Loyalty isn't an attribute, it's a weakness. Martyrs are loyal, victors are selfish. If you took a page out of our dear Sherlock's book then you wouldn't be sitting in a windmill being used as leverage right now. But then where would you be? Who is John Watson without his Sherlock? Would you simply cease to matter?" Moriarty asked as he pouted at John in mock sympathy.

"Don't worry; I'm not going to kill him."Moriarty said as he stroked John's knee, "I'm going to get him to kill you." He whispered as he removed his hand and stood up.

John felt his skin grow clammy and suddenly the feeling of his clothes pressing against his body became sickeningly restrictive and claustrophobic.

"But I don't want to ruin the surprise until Sherlock gets here," Moriarty said as he peered out of one of the windows, "I've been planning this for a while and I don't want to lessen the drama by revealing to you what's going to happen. I want to see both of your faces; I've even invested in one of these."

Moriarty pulled out a small camcorder from inside his suit jacket. He must have pressed a button because suddenly the thing came to life and cast a blob of bright light across his face.

"Let me just zoom in." He said as he pointed the camera at John, "This can be my pre-performance recording. I'm going to edit it when all of this is done." He said as he slowly side-stepped his way around the room, taking in both John and Irene from different angles, "I'll add some emotive music and some special effects. It's going to be amazing." He sang with glee, "I'll send a copy to Sherlock so that he can play it over and over and over again. Maybe I'll get a film deal, a big blockbuster production... shame there won't be a sequel." He said with a sigh before he turned off the camcorder and put it back in his pocket.

John watched as Moriarty walked over and sat himself next to Irene – who had been staring impassively at the ceiling. He rested his head against one of the wooden beams that ran down the wall and laid his legs over hers, almost like she was some sort of cushion.

"Do you know the best bit... well, there are many best bits but I can't tell you about all of them yet can I? Otherwise I'd ruin the surprise, but the best bit as thus far is that Sherlock actually thinks that he's winning. He thinks that he's going to ride in here and outsmart me and escape with both you and Irene in tow. It would be funny if it wasn't so pathetic." Moriarty said almost sadly as he pulled out an apple from his trouser pocket and began buffing it against his knee.

No one spoke for a few moments and all that broke the silence was the sound of Moriarty munching on his apple. John watched as Moriarty stared intently at Irene.

"Do you want a bite?" He asked as he held the apple to her lips.

Irene continued to stare up at the ceiling although John could see her lips twitch slightly towards the piece of fruit.

"Bless her," Moriarty said as he took the apple away, "I haven't really been feeding her very much, I'm a bit of a careless host." He said conspiratorially to John, "I had a rabbit as a child but I constantly forgot to feed it or give it water. I was a forgetful child. I forgot to bring it's hutch inside when the weather got colder and so it froze to death. Are you cold Irene?"

Irene made no move to suggest that she had heard him instead she just continued to stare up into the darkened recesses of the roof.

Something pinged and John watched as Moriarty bit down on the remaining apple to keep it in his mouth and used his – now free hands – to pull out his phone and scroll through his messages.

"Oh good," He said around the apple. He looked up at John, the light from the phone's screen made his eyes shine with excitement, "Sherlock's here." He bounced up off the floor and threw the half eaten apple out of the window, "I was hoping that he'd arrive at the break of dawn. The lighting would have been better."

Moriarty looked out at the blackened night sky disappointedly before he reached into the waistband of his trousers and pulled out a gun, "Get up." He said to both Irene and John.

When neither of them moved he rolled his eyes in exasperation, "Don't be difficult, I've been waiting for this for months and now the night has finally arrived I don't want either of you to spoil it by being defiant." Moriarty approached John, the gun – which had been pointed at his head – slowly travelled down to point in the direction of John's stomach,

"Dr Watson how painful is a gunshot wound to the abdomen?"

John clenched his jaw to prevent it from trembling, "I wouldn't know, I got shot in my leg."

Moriarty stared at him vacantly, almost as if he were dreaming, "Would you like to find out?" John watched as Moriarty's finger curled around the trigger, his fingernail starting to turn white from the pressure of pushing down...

"Are we planning on leaving any time soon?" Irene asked as she unsteadily got to her feet. She swayed slightly – no doubt from a combination of hunger and the cold. She held her hand out to John but kept her eyes on Moriarty, "Shall we?"

Moriarty stared at her for a few seconds before he smiled and gestured with the gun towards the open door,

"After you."

John reached up and took Irene's hand. He hadn't realised that his legs were shaking until he got to his feet and found it almost impossible to stand. It was the adrenaline, he could feel it, as cold as ice, running down the length of his spine and pumping into his organs. Whether it was because she was also finding it hard to stand – or because she knew that John wouldn't be able to make the journey alone – Irene linked her arm with John's as they made it out of the room.

After a rather laborious climb down an incredibly narrow staircase, John and Irene found themselves in another dark room facing another locked door.

"Pull the deadbolts back and open it." Moriarty instructed from somewhere close behind John.

Irene did as he said and, with a hand that only trembled slightly; she reached up, slid the deadbolts out of the locks and flung the door open.

The freezing night air hit their faces and John felt both himself and Irene shiver simultaneously. All that lay before them was a large empty field, with a border of black trees that boxed them in. It was too dark to see very far but John thought that he could see the faint outline of two figures standing a little way off in the distance.

"Excuse me," Moriarty said almost bashfully as he nudged his way towards the wall, "I forgot to turn on the lights." Something clicked and suddenly ten massive stadium lights, that encircled the area, came to life. The light was blinding and it completely illuminated the field and the surrounding trees.

"Why don't you wave?" Moriarty asked as he waved enthusiastically at the two men who were standing a dozen or so meters away from the windmill. Even though he was too far away to see clearly, John could tell by the trademark hair and coat that Sherlock was one of the men.

A light nudge at the small of his back – no doubt from the tip of a gun – sent both John and Irene into the night. The grass was frozen solid and powered white with frost, it crunched beneath their feet as they wandered closer to the centre of the field. John quickly realised that the man standing next to Sherlock – who had his _hands _on Sherlock and was holding a _gun_ to the left side of his temple – was the same sadistic bastard who had ambushed John in the alleyway. But John wasn't paying much attention to him. He was staring at Sherlock.

He watched as Sherlock's eyes quickly scanned him from head to toe – do doubt looking for signs of injury or damage – his eyes rested briefly on the spot where John and Irene's arms were interlinked before moving on to scan John's chest and shoulder and… Sherlock was looking at everywhere apart from John's eyes.

Was he still angry about the argument? About John smashing the violin? Surely he couldn't be so petty as to actually be _sulking _now when there was a real likelihood that John was going to die... but then maybe that was the reason. Maybe Sherlock couldn't look him in the eye without betraying the fact that he knew that it was all over and that there was nothing that he could do to save John.

"Sherlock." John said in desperation.

His eyes finally found John's. They stared at each other for what felt like an age and the longer their eyes remained locked the calmer John became. Everything was okay, Sherlock had a plan – John could see it in the way his irises seemed to glow with excitement. A bad hand might have been dealt but the game wasn't over yet and if John hadn't felt so tired or so cold or so frightened he would have jumped for joy.

"I must say Sherlock," Moriarty said, effectively forcing Sherlock to break eye contact with John, "You've been incredibly slow these past few months. I left you so many clues, gave you ample opportunity to work out what was going on but you just... didn't... quite... twig. I should have just sent you a map. What was it that finally gave me away?"

Sherlock remained silent for a few seconds before he said, "There were traces of _Agrostemma Githago _on the feet and knees of all the victims."

"Ah yes, I'm glad you picked up on that, it took me ages to grow all those flowers." Moriarty said as he slowly circled Sherlock. He stopped in front of him and just stared unblinkingly at his face, "Here," he said as he handed the camcorder to the man by Sherlock's side, "Start recording this."

The man removed his hold from Sherlock's arm and pulled the gun away from his head so that he could turn on the camcorder and manipulate it with two hands. "Action!" He said as he pressed a button and the machine pinged to life.

Moriarty took a few steps back from Sherlock and stood in between John and Irene. He cupped the backs of their heads with his hands and began stroking their hair softly,

"You're a fan of games aren't you Sherlock? Have you ever heard of the card game called _Seven Devils_?"

"Do you really want me to answer or are you just employing rhetoric to increase the dramatic tension of your little monologue."

Moriarty's soft strokes turned savage and he roughly yanked both Irene and John's heads back, making them hiss loudly in pain, "Don't. Test. Me. Sherlock." He said staccato, "Otherwise I shall rip off both of their heads and the game will be over before it's even had a chance to begin."

John could see Sherlock's jaw clench shut.

"Good boy," Moriarty cooed as he went back to softly stroking the back of John and Irene's heads, "The wonderful thing about _Seven Devils _is that there's no re-deal, no second chances. If you make just one little mistake you lose – very much like life." Moriarty took his hand away from Irene's head and placed it on John's chest,

"You had a chance to kill me once but you didn't because you didn't want to blow up your friend. You lost your round and now it's my turn."

"You did all this just to kill me?"

Moriarty shook his head, "As I told you before Sherlock, I'm going to kill you anyway, but until then I want break your mind."

Sherlock seemed unmoved by Moriarty's admission; in fact, he looked a little bored,

"So if you're not going to kill me then you're going to kill them? Wait, let me guess," Sherlock said in mock excitement, "you're going to make me chose which one to save and which one to die? It's hardly original."

"Do you really think that I'd drag you all the way out here for that?" Moriarty tutted, "You wound me Sherlock, I'm an evil genius not a naughty school boy, I have no intention of making a remake of "_Sophie's Choice"_. This," he said as he extended out his arms and circled a few times, "This is the damnation of Sherlock Holmes."

"That's the problem with evil geniuses; they have a penchant for being drama queens."

Moriarty ignored him and instead slowly bent down, pulled up his trouser leg and untied the gun that was fastened to his calf. It was a revolver and he opened up the chamber to show Sherlock that there were two bullets inside. He snapped the chamber shut and then threw the gun to the ground, just shy of Sherlock's left foot.

Sherlock picked it up and clasped it securely in his hand, "So what are we going to do? Walk twenty paces and see who has the quickest reflexes?"

Moriarty smiled an ugly, heart-freezing, smile at Sherlock, "You're going to kill Irene Adler and John Watson yourself. Two bullets for two brains."

John watched as Sherlock's body became very still – it was obvious that he hadn't been expecting that. He quickly recovered and said, "And exactly why would I do that? What's to stop me from putting a bullet in your brain?"

Moriarty shrugged as he pressed the gun he was holding to the side of his own head, "Just from a purely mathematical stand point it would be extremely unlikely for you to deliver two fatal shots – using only two bullets – without getting yourself killed."

John watched in horror as Sherlock mimicked Moriarty and pressed the gun to the side of his own head, "What if I'd rather take a bullet?"

"You wouldn't do that."

"Why not? There doesn't seem to be an incentive, either way they both end up dead."

"Your incentive is that either you kill them quick and painlessly by putting a bullet through their skulls or... Alexander kills them slow and torturously by cutting off tiny pieces of them until they either bleed to death or die of shock."

John watched as Sherlock's face grew deathly pale and as the colour drained from his face so did the light from his eyes...

"Wait a minute." John said suddenly, "This is completely insane..."

"Of course it is; I'm a mad man." Moriarty sang, "But it's also perfect." Moriarty said as he walked over and pressed his forehead against John's, "He'll kill you out of mercy." He said in a mock whisper, "There's no way that Sherlock could stand there and listen to my pet butcher his little puppy. He'd hear you yelp and cry and scream for him to help you and it would destroy him. But then, if he puts a bullet in your brain he'll have to live with the fact that he killed you and that will ruin him as well."

Moriarty slid his arm around John's shoulder and turned to face Sherlock again,

"But you're going to do the right thing aren't you Sherlock? You're going to kill Dr Watson so that he doesn't have to suffer. And then you'll go home and sink into a pit of despair, replaying this moment over and over and over again. That's one of the problems of having _such _a good memory or – what is it that you call it again? – Your "Mind Palace"? You'll get to capture the image of John's face just before you pull the trigger and the image of his body as the life drains out of it."

Sherlock's eyes fell on John's as Moriarty spoke, almost as if he was already seeing the images flash before his eyes.

"Maybe you'll last a day or so, before you start shooting up again just to make your mind go blank. And I'll leave you like that for a few months, just letting you circle that proverbial drain and then," Moriarty said dramatically, "When you least expect it, I'll send you a copy of the recording that Alexander is filming right now. And it'll just be too much for you… and not long after that it'll be… bye, bye Mr Holmes. That housekeeper of yours will find your brains splattered all over the walls and they'll bundle you up and take you to Bart's where that sorry little thing…Molly is it? Well, she'll cry for you. But no one else will because you would have already killed the only person who truly loves you!"

Moriarty clapped his hands together gleefully, "There's a sort of poetic licence to the whole thing don't you think?"

In all the time that he had been speaking, Sherlock had been staring intently at John, his eyes boring into his. At first John thought that he had completely shut down and that he was simply staring through John… but then he caught the sight of movement coming from his right, from… Irene? And before John could turn his head to look Sherlock made a subtle movement of his head and the message was as clear as if Sherlock had actually said the words out loud: _Keep your eyes fixed on me John._

"I see you've left me with no choice." Sherlock said hoarsely and John felt a spark of excitement flutter in his chest because he knew that Sherlock was lying. He watched as Sherlock ran a hand through his hair which – to anyone else – would appear to be a sign of agitation but John knew differently and, sure enough, as Sherlock brought his hand away from his hair John saw something tiny and metallic glint in the light.

"I want… I want to kill John first." Sherlock said, directing his statement at Moriarty.

As he spoke John felt Irene slide something small and cold into his palm. He traced the thing with his fingers and realised that it was one of her earrings. Before he could explore it further he felt hands on his shoulders forcing him to kneel in front of Sherlock. The ground felt hard and cold against his knees and for one brief, ridiculous, second he thought that out of all the times he had fantasised about kneeling in front of Sherlock, this was never how he had imagined it.

John frantically felt around the dimensions of the earring in his hand, searching for something, for anything that he could turn or twist or press... A button! He just felt it, the tiny bump of a button sticking out of the surface. He didn't know what it would do if he pushed it, nor did he know when or what he should do with it, but he was willing to trust in Irene and take his lead from Sherlock.

He did this now, staring into Sherlock's eyes as he raised the gun and pointed it at John's head. He searched his eyes but he saw nothing. He searched his face but saw nothing. Sherlock was telling him nothing, his face was blank, his eyes vacant and resolved and as he pulled back the firing pin from the revolver John experienced a moment of sickening fear. Perhaps what he was feeling wasn't a button after all but rather just part of the design and that Sherlock wasn't acting he was serious and the roughness of his voice and the trembling of his lips were just involuntary acts of fear and that Irene had placed this piece of her jewellery into his hand as a way of… what? Comfort? So that he felt someone or something with him in his last few moments.

He stared at the gun and then back at Sherlock. He watched as his lips parted and then heard Sherlock say, "John," and his voice was rough and his eyes looked tortured and John knew that this was it, that he was going to die; that Sherlock was going to have to kill him.

John swallowed. He had to tell him, he had to say that it didn't matter and that he forgave him and that he didn't blame him for everything that had happened and that he was sorry that he had broken his violin and had been acting like such a shitty friend lately and that he loved him. John opened his mouth because he had to say it, and despite the sound of his blood pumping through his ears and the thickness of his throat and the tightness of his chest he just had to say it. Because this was it, this was the last moment of his life and he just couldn't die without telling Sherlock that he...

"Press down now and aim for the east." Sherlock said before he clenched something in his own hand and threw it in the direction of Alexander.

Smoke exploded and an errant shot rang out. John pressed the thing in his hand and threw it in an easterly direction like Sherlock had told him to. More smoke filled the air and John could faintly make out Irene throwing a similar devise. He was blinded by the smoke and he coughed as he wildly searched for Sherlock.

Another shot and this time it must have made impact because someone... a man... Sherlock screamed out in pain.

"Sherlock...!"

"Run John!" Sherlock said and John could hear that he was in pain.

John couldn't move, he couldn't leave Sherlock there but then two hands tugged at his jacket and he turned to come face to face with Irene. Before he could do or say anything Irene began forcibly dragging John away from the smoke, away from the mad men and away from Sherlock.


	12. What If?

_And what if, this moment, wrapped in the gauze shawl_

_Of stillness, is the secret after all, to learn to look_

_More closely at the varied world, the veins of a leaf,_

_A stone, the shape of our hands, the curve of our nails the_

_Secret of loving the transfigured world?_

- _Maria Mazziotti Gillan_

* * *

The world was dark and cold and quiet and the only sound that John could hear was the blood in his ears and the constant impact of his feet on the frozen floor. John didn't know where he was going, all he knew was that he had to run, Sherlock had told him to run and so that is what he was doing. He was running away from the field and from Sherlock, from his friend who had been shot, who was probably bleeding to death right in front of the man whose seemingly sole purpose in life was to destroy Sherlock's life.

There was no coherent thought in his mind, only flashes of images and words and sounds: _Sherlock's face... Run John! ...Smoke, think and dry, clogging his airways, making it hard to breathe... Run John! ...Two gunshots, first one misfired, second one made contact... Sherlock's laboured breathing, his voice strained and sharp with pain... Run John! ... Run John! ... Run John!_

The forest was pitch black and as they ran John's limbs sporadically smashed into unseen tree trunks and bushes, low hanging branches clawed at his face and unearthed roots caught his feet almost vindictively. John's hand felt sweaty in Irene's but he clung on for dear life as they hurtled through the darkness, he was afraid that if he let go he would stop being tethered to the world and the shadows would simply steal him away.

He didn't know how long they'd been running but it was longer than he had ever run before. It was the adrenaline that was keeping him going, John could feel it in his blood and muscles. It buzzed inside him like electricity and John knew from experience that the second he stopped moving its effects would start to wear off and his energy levels would crash harder than a falling plane. But he couldn't keep going, not like this, not at this frantic speed because his heart would explode. He needed to stop.

A few seconds later, almost as if Irene had heard his thoughts, she finally stopped running and at last let go of his hand. They both bent at the waist and gulped down shuddering lungfuls of freezing night air.

"Where..." John began but the overwhelming metallic taste in his mouth made him cough a few times before he could continue, "Where are we going? Do you have some sort of plan?"

Irene breathed in heavily through her nose before she stood up straight,

"Look around John, what can you see?"

John, unable to stand straight just yet because of the powerful stitch in his side, raised his head slightly and took in the sight of their surroundings. They were in a clearing, half illuminated by the light of the moon. Trees only encircled a portion of the area and there was a good fifty to sixty feet of empty space that simply slipped off into darkness. Through the shadows John could see pin pricks of light. At first he thought that they were stars but he quickly realised that they were evenly spaced and glowing yellow rather than white.

As John's breathing and heart rate slowed he could faintly make out the sound of distant traffic. They were close to a motorway. Before John could ask Irene how she'd known how to get to the main road he spotted something metallic glinting in the moonlight. He turned his head and saw a blue Honda parked just to the left of a large oak tree.

"What... why is there a car in the middle of the forest?"

Irene shot him a look of complete and utter incredulity, "I know you're in mild shock but I need for you not to act like an idiot."

It took him a few minutes of looking back and forth between Irene and the car before John made the connection,

"Sherlock left it there?"

Irene clapped three times in a mock applause before she headed towards the car. It had obviously been left unlocked because Irene was able to open up the boot without using a key. John watched her rummage around in – what appeared to be a canvas bag – before he asked,

"But how did you know that it was here?"

"John_"

"And don't tell me that I'm acting like an idiot because that isn't an idiotic question, it's _reasonable _for me to question how it's possible for you to find a car parked in the middle of a forest, in the dark without a compass or a fucking map. Or, while we're on the subject, question how you and Sherlock knew that you were going to smoke bomb yourselves out of that situation? He didn't even look at you and yet you were both almost working in perfect synchronicity. So I can only assume that either you both pre-planned this or you and Sherlock share some sort of telepathic connection."

Irene sighed deeply before she slammed the car boot shut and rested herself against it, "Is there a chance that we could talk about this in the car?"

John unintentionally backed away, "Why... we can't just drive away."

"Yes we can, Sherlock deliberately left the key in the ignition for us to do just that."

"But he's hurt, he's been shot! We can't just leave him to die_ he could already be dead."

"Well then what's the point of risking our lives to retrieve a corpse? And don't give me that look John, I'm not being heartless I'm simply being pragmatic." Irene said as she walked around and pulled open the driver's side door. Seemingly without even having to look, she located a piece of paper tucked beneath the seat and quickly scanned it.

"Have you ever played "What If?"?" She asked after she had finished reading whatever was written on the page

John blinked in confusion, "The party game? Where someone describes an imaginary scenario and you have to say how you'd respond?"

Irene nodded, "Do you remember last Christmas when Sherlock was continually texting someone on his phone?"

"How did..." John began but then quickly realised where this was going, "He was texting you?"

Irene nodded again, "He said that he was being forced to spend the day socialising with a group of aggravating ignoramuses."

John bit the inside of his cheek to keep his annoyance in check, "He spent the day with me, Mrs Hudson and Mycroft."

"I'm sure he wasn't referring to you." Irene said with an amused smirk, "But anyway, I received a text from him that simply read: "Have you ever yearned for an apocalypse that wipes out the entirety of the human race just so you can be spared the torture of playing party games and engaging in social niceties?" – I suppose that was his way of wishing me a merry Christmas. Anyway, I piggybacked off his text and brought up the game "What If?" and told him that that game could be rather interesting. He said that he doubted it, I took that as a challenge and thus had to prove him wrong."

John couldn't help but smile slightly as he realised what she was leading up to, "Don't tell me that you discussed what you would do if you were kidnapped by a serial killer?"

"No..." Irene said as she shook her head emphatically, "We didn't just restrict it to serial killers. We also discussed the possibility of psychopaths, various military operatives, terrorist cells and people suffering from a drug induced psychosis."

John rubbed his hand over his eyes, even now he could clearly picture the image of Sherlock draped across the sofa texting while the rest of them watched "_It's a Wonderful Life_" and ate copious amounts of Twiglets. When John had asked him who he was texting, Sherlock had simply shushed him as he texted furiously in response to what his correspondent had just said.

"You're not normal." John muttered to himself.

"Who? Sherlock or myself?"

"Both of you."

Irene seemed to swell with pride, almost as if he had just given her a compliment rather than an insult, "Anyway, over the course of that afternoon we outlined detailed rescue plans for specific locations and situations. I told him that an ex-lover of mine – who used to work for MI5 until she met a rather untimely end in Prague – gave me a pair of diamond earrings that doubled as explosive smoke bombs. Sherlock seemed to get rather excited by this idea and asked me to invest in a set for him."

Irene smiled at the memory, "I said that he was too manly to pull off diamond studs so instead I suggested that he simply conceal the device in that gorgeous hair of his." Irene raised her eyebrows, "Can you deduce from the empirical evidence presented to you what happened next or do I need to break it down further for you?"

"No I think I can keep up." John said a little tersely, "But what about the car?"

Irene sighed in exasperation, "Sherlock shouted at you for you to throw your device east and he threw his south, the north side of the field was completely blocked off by densely packed trees which left only the west side as a viable escape route. I assumed that he was trying to convey the idea that he had parked the car somewhere to the west of where we were standing."

John gaped at her incredulously, "How could you possibly know that? There's no way you could have... that was a blind leap of faith backed up by complete and utter bollocks."

Irene knocked her knuckles against the car window, "It worked didn't it. Now, we really must get going."

"Where?"

Irene waved the piece of paper at John, "We also discussed what we would do if one of us got injured or if we got separated. We agreed that if we were on stable ground we would leave a note in a car – or other method of transportation – instructing the other where to go. Obviously the rules changed if we were sea or airborne."

"Well of course, obviously." John muttered.

"Would you like to hear what Sherlock has to say? Will that convince you to get into the car and stop acting like a four year old?"

John ignored her little comment and simply nodded his assent. Irene looked down at the note and read,

"_Irene, I'm assuming if you're reading this note then you and John have found the car – if John is not with you then simply disregard the rest of this note. If neither of you are in need of immediate medical attention then take the car to the Premier Inn off the first exit of the motorway. There's a key card in the glove compartment, the room is 1245. If I'm dead then enjoy the room – it's paid up until Sunday – if I'm alive, then wait for me, I shouldn't be far behind. Sherlock._"

Irene looked up at John after she had finished reading, "If he is alive then he will find a way of meeting us at that hotel. If he was shot – which I can't be sure of – but if he was shot then he'll need you to attend to him. He packed your medical case in the boot along with an IV and suture kit. He's planned this through; he prepared for every possibility."

John stared at her from a long moment, he felt internally torn, "But what if he's dead or dying?"

Irene held his gaze, "We also discussed what would happen if you were involved. He told me that, if given the choice between saving him and saving you, I was to choose you. Now, he came to get _you, _he knew the risks; he knew what he was facing that's why he factored in that possibility into his note. He wanted to save your life and – with my help – that is exactly what he has done. I'm not going to let you go back and get yourself killed because then all of this would have been for nothing. So we're going to get in this car and drive to the hotel and wait to see if Sherlock shows up. If he does then we can all celebrate by linking arms and walking off into the sunset."

"And if he doesn't?" John asked.

Irene's jaw tensed and her eyes remained fixed on John's but she didn't say anything, there was really nothing to say. If Sherlock was dead then the world, at least as far as John was concerned, would forever fall silent.

"Get in the car John." Irene said at last as she slid into the driver's seat.

When John still hadn't approached the car she continued, "You are either going to get in this car of your own freewill or I am doing to drag you in by the hair."

She didn't appear to be joking and, considering there was nothing else for him to do, John had no other choice but to cross the clearing and slid into the passenger seat.


	13. Do Not Disturb

**Author's Note: So yes, I suppose an explanation/warning is required for this next chapter. Although it was never my intention to write an M rated Fanfiction, I starting writing this chapter and it became... um... not T rated. So I decided instead of completely rewriting it I might as well change the rating.**

**As I said in my first author's note, this is likely to be my first and last Fanfiction so I might as well try my hand at everything and go out with a bang rather than the proverbial whimper.**

**Although this chapter isn't firmly seated in M rated territory, future chapters probably will be. If you're one of the lovely reviewers - such as Monnikce, CaughtOutInTheDark and NarutoRox - who started reading this fic when it was still a T rating, then I hope that the change of rating won't put you off.**

**Now, back to John and Irene...**

* * *

The hotel was cheap looking with its threadbare green carpets and poorly painted red walls. The lighting was too bright and it made John's eyes ache and his head throb. In the dining room – which was attached adjacently to the reception area – John could see a few haggard looking couples eating soggy fish and chips while they stared despondently at one another. A television was nailed onto the far wall, it was playing, what appeared to be, advertisements on a loop: smiling, white toothed people laughing and enjoying life because they had found the wonders of Coke Zero or adult nappies.

There was a mirror opposite the entrance and as John and Irene walked passed he caught a glimpse of himself. He looked terrible, in fact, he didn't even look alive. The skin under his eyes looked black and his face appeared to have the same complexion as a corpse. Irene looked just as bad, however her clothes appeared to be far more creased than his. They looked like they had been sleeping rough for days and were in need of several hours of uninterrupted sleep and an intravenous drip.

There was no one at the reception desk so Irene and John were able to slip across the lobby and up the first flight of stairs unnoticed. They climbed in silence and John kept his eyes on his feet, too tired to continue surveying his surroundings. They crossed the landing, passing dozens of doors and the sound of breathy sleeping. It wasn't that late, maybe just gone midnight, but John felt as if he had been awake for days. The adrenaline had worn off and his energy levels were beginning to crash.

They reached their door and Irene slid the key card out of her pocket and slotted it into the electronic scanner. The red light turned green but before she could push the door open John held onto the handle.

He just stood there, head down, hand clutching the handle for what felt like hours. Every minute felt like an hour, every hour felt like a day and he was so tired but he couldn't open the door yet. He couldn't open the door and obliterate whatever semblance of hope he still had. He had been hoping, the entire drive here, that when he opened the door to their hotel room he'd see Sherlock sitting on the bed, face smeared with mud, coat badly stained with grass and dirt, possibly bleeding but alive, definitely alive. He'd scan John from head to foot before he'd open his mouth and say something so completely insensitive, so utterly Sherlock, that John would want to punch him in the face.

John took several steps forward and pressed his ear to the thin wood. Nothing. He heard no movement or breathing, no sound that indicated that anyone was on the other side. He closed his eyes and rested his forehead against the door,

"I don't think he's in there." John said, and even in his own ears he sounded heartbroken.

"Well we can't be sure until we open the door." Irene said as she slid her hand over his. Slowly she pressed down and the door opened with a soft snick.

No light spilled out of the crack they had just created and as Irene pushed the door completely open John stared into the darkness of a cold, empty room.

"It doesn't mean that he isn't going to show up at some point." Irene said but John could barely hear her voice, he just stared blankly at the shadow cloaked bed where he had envisioned Sherlock sitting. Irene was still talking but all John could hear was the pressure behind his ears.

That pleasant vision of Sherlock sitting warm and safe was replaced with the image of him crawling across a frozen field, his hand clutching his stomach as blood trickled from beneath his fingers. He saw Sherlock trying to claw his way to safety, only to be dragged back by the hand of Jim Moriarty_

Suddenly John's eyes started to feel hot and itchy and his throat grew tight. He was about to cry and he couldn't stop himself. He didn't want to cry – especially not in front of Irene – but in that moment that seemed to be the only thing that he could do. He was about to cry because the second he had opened that door and had seen nothing but darkness, the tiny shred of hope that John had been clinging onto had been snatched away from him, leaving him feeling raw and exposed.

"I think," Irene said loudly as she placed her hands on John's shoulders and shoved him into the room, "That I'm going to have a shower." She flicked on the lights and forced John to sit down on the bed, "You don't mind do you? Only I haven't had proper wash for almost a month."

John was incapable of answering because a massive lump and settle at the back of his throat and as he swallowed he felt the first few tears stain his cheeks. He quickly wiped them away and glanced at Irene. She wasn't looking at him. She was continuing to talk to him as she hurriedly grabbed a towel from the cupboard and removed her shoes but she was deliberately not looking at his face. John realised, after a moment, that she was trying to maintain his dignity by not being an audience to his break down. He felt a surge of affection for her in that moment but this only made him cry harder because his reserve had been rubbed raw by the events of the past twenty-four hours and every emotion felt like lemon juice on an open wound.

"I like to take my time." Irene informed him, subtly conveying her dual meaning, as she slipped into the bathroom and locked the door.

John waited until he heard the sound of the shower running before he finally let out the sob that had been building in his chest since he first saw Sherlock point the gun at his head. He pushed himself back on the bed and curled himself in ball. The sheets smelt musty and John could see that there was a brownish stain marring the left corner of the duvet. He let himself cry, keeping as quiet as he could, as he listened to the monotonous sound of the water hitting the floor in the shower room.

His tears wet the duvet and he had to keep moving his head so that the side of his face wouldn't stick to the cheap fabric. He couldn't think about Sherlock, couldn't even begin to entertain the idea that he could be dead – however, as the events of the evening played out that unbearable possibility seemed to be getting more and more likely. He couldn't think about anything and as his sobs rung the last of the energy from his body John felt his heart rate slow and his consciousness slip away from him until, mercifully, he fell into a deep, dreamless sleep...

* * *

At first John didn't know why he had woken up. He was still bone tired and the skin around his eyes itched in protest as his lids slid open. He blinked away the fuzziness and stared blankly at person lying next to him. It took him a moment to realise that it was Irene, at some point in the night she must have climbed into bed with him. Strands of her dark – still wet – hair were draped across the pillow and half of her face was covered up by the duvet.

John stared at her for a moment, unsure why he also wasn't still dead to the world. He must have heard something. Maybe people talking in the hallway as they passed by or perhaps Irene had shifted under the covers beside him. It must have been something like that because the room was still and silent now.

He turned, stretching his limbs and spine. All of his muscles ached fiercely so he gave up and simply collapsed back against the pillows. From his new angle John could see through the bare window on the right side of the room, it was letting in lines of pale, grey early morning light. John wasn't sure how long he had been asleep but it couldn't have been more than six, or seven hours. He rubbed a hand across his eyes and then closed them completely when the tug of sleep became too powerful to resist. The bed was warm and the surrounding air was freezing so he burrowed deeper under the covers and allowed himself to drift.

He didn't have to worry when he was sleeping. There were no crazed gunmen to fight, no devastating – possibly ruinous – feelings to declare, no potential funerals to plan_

Suddenly the duvet was ripped from off the bed and freezing air hit John's bare feet and the exposed skin of his back. John shot up, his head spun slightly from the sudden rush of blood to his brain but he was still able to clearly see, a rather bedraggled looking, Sherlock Holmes standing at the bottom of the bed, the duvet clutched in his hand.

John opened his mouth to speak but the sight of Sherlock had rendered him practically ineffable. Even in the dim light John could see that Sherlock was hurt, a mixture of dry and wet blood marred the skin of his hands and throat. His hair was chaotic, pieces of torn off grass and dead leaves poked out from in-between the black strands. His shirt was slightly ripped at the collar and his trouser legs were caked six inches deep in mud – with his knees taking the major brunt of, what appeared to be, half the forest's floor.

"Jesus Christ." John finally said as he scrambled onto his hands and knees and crawled across the bed, needing to make physical contact with Sherlock to make sure that he wasn't merely an apparition or some deluded fantasy that his sleep deprived mind had summoned up. The second his hands touched the rough fabric of Sherlock's coat John let out a chocked sound of relief.

"Oh thank God," John said as he clung on to the lapels of his coat and rested his head against Sherlock's chest, "Thank God you're alive, I thought... Oh thank God."

"I can assure you," Sherlock said, "_God _had absolutely nothing to do with it."

John smiled widely, "I was being figurative." John mumbled into Sherlock's shirt.

"No, you were being evangelical."

John knew that he should probably pull away as they had gone passed the "friend appropriate" amount of time that one platonic friend could cling on to another, but his fingers seemed to be frozen around the lapels of Sherlock's coat and his body was apparently magnetically drawn to the warmth of Sherlock's chest. John could hear Sherlock's heart beating and never before had he been this pleased to hear a human exerting the basic sounds of life.

Sherlock shifted slightly and, even though John couldn't be sure, he thought that he felt the back of Sherlock's hand brush against the side of his stomach.

The main light flicked on and, reluctantly, John turned his face away from Sherlock's chest to look at Irene – who was smiling wickedly at them.

"Is it wrong that this is turning me on?" Irene asked as her eyes lingered on John's claw like grip on Sherlock's coat.

John quickly moved away from Sherlock and sat back down on the bed. Sherlock wasn't looking at him; he was too busy staring at Irene.

"Are you alright dear?" She asked as she snatched the duvet from his fingers and wrapped it around herself, "You seem to be a little listless."

Sherlock was silent for a few more seconds before he said, "I'm trying to work out how to... thank you." The words sounded wrong in Sherlock's mouth, almost as if he was trying to speak a foreign language.

"Well," Irene said as she propped herself up with pillows, "You say: Irene, you glorious, incredibly attractive woman, I know that we theoretically discussed what we would do in a situation such as the one that we've just experienced but... I never thought that you would pull it off as perfectly as you did in practice. And then you say..." She trailed off suggestively.

Sherlock seemed incredibly uncomfortable and John watched as he began picking at one of his coat cuffs, "I wanted to thank you for getting him out of there and keeping him safe."

John looked from Sherlock to Irene who simply nodded and said, "You're very welcome, Mr Holmes."

"You both know that I'm sitting right here don't you?" John asked.

"John, I'll deal with you in a minute." Sherlock said like he was chastising an errant school boy.

"What do you mean you'll _deal with me in a minute_?" John asked, his newly found joy being rapidly corrupted by anger.

Sherlock sighed, he actually _sighed_, before he said to Irene, "Could you please get the medical bag out of the car? I was looking for the keys but I couldn't find them. And you should probably take your time coming back," his eyes quickly slid over to John, "This is going to take a few minutes."

John's rage awoke along with a white hot flash of energy that emanated from the back of his skull to the base of his spine.

Irene looked between Sherlock and John before she smiled and slid off the bed, "If you really wanted to thank me Sherlock you'd let me watch what's about to happen... well, you'd let me watch a lot of things." She said as she winked at John conspiratorially.

John watched as she hurriedly pulled on her jeans and shoved her feet into her shoes, "Don't be afraid to let him have it John," She said, "One might even say that, with all that he's put you through, you'd be within your rights to simply take him across your knee and punish him_"

"Get out!" Sherlock snapped and John thought he saw Sherlock flush slightly.

Irene's smile was dazzling, "What happened to Mr Thankful?" When Sherlock did nothing but shoot daggers at her she rolled her eyes and said, "Evidently he's been replaced by Mr Grumpy. I promise to knock before I let myself in." She said before opening the door and slipping into the dark hallway.

Silence surrounded them and John's anger was momentarily abated by a feeling of profound awkwardness. This was the first time they had been alone since they had had their argument and with all that had transpired between them in the past twenty-four hours John was unsure where he should begin. At the moment it was a tossup between: "Hey Sherlock, I'm sorry I flipped out and smashed one of your few cherished possessions" or "Do you remember the time I got kidnapped by your archenemy and he got you to point a gun at my head and made me believe that you were going to shoot me dead? God, wasn't that just crazy?"

Neither of those options seemed to be a winner so instead he said,

"Where did you get shot?"

Sherlock turned his attention from the door and asked, "Pardon?"

"Where did you get shot?"

Sherlock waved the matter away as if it was of little consequence, "In the thigh and in the shoulder."

"Jesus, how much blood have you lost?"

"I'm not sure."

"Are the bullets still inside you?"

"I don't know," Sherlock hissed, "I was a little preoccupied with the task of getting out of there alive."

John blinked at him incredulously, "Did you just...? Did you just give me attitude?"

"I am not a teenage girl John; don't accuse me of "sassing" you."

"But that's exactly what you are doing, you're being all strange and passive aggressive."

"Well I have good reason to be." Sherlock finally snapped, his voice rising just above what is an acceptable inside volume, "We're in this mess because of your carelessness."

John stared opened mouthed at Sherlock, "How can you possibly blame _me _for this? This was your fuck up, you took the case, you got involved with a serial killer – again – you couldn't stop obsessing, you couldn't help but keep probing until you solved your puzzle."

"We wouldn't have gone through what we just did if you hadn't gotten yourself abducted by that serial killer."

"How can you... how can you blame me for getting abducted? That's like blaming a child for his parents' divorce."

"Oh, so in your analogy I'm your parent?"

"No, it was just a comparative – obviously a poor one – because if anything, I'm _your _parent. I clean up after you, and cook you dinner and drive you to crime scenes and have little sit down talks with Mycroft and Lestrade to talk about your behaviour. All I have to do is start tucking you in at night to truly conform to the role of mother."

Sherlock's nostrils flared in anger and he tried to pace but the bullet wound in his leg impeded his movements, "So you're seriously not going to take any of the blame for this?"

John paused a moment before he shouted, "No! I'm not taking the blame for your mistakes, I want an apology, I want you to say, "Oh, I'm sorry John for pointing a gun at your head_"

"I wasn't going to shoot you_"

"But I didn't know that_"

"Well you should, you should know me well enough by now to know_"

"To know what? That you were going to pull a smoke bomb out of your hair to distract the nutcases that were holding me hostage?"

"Well we're friends aren't we, isn't that what friends are supposed to do – know things about each other."

"Yes," John spluttered, "But it's meant to be stuff like how you take your tea or what the name of your first pet was or whether or not you eat meat_"

"Why would you need to know those things about me? How is the answer to any of those questions going to help you get out of a high pressure situation?"

John hit his head against the mattress in frustration before he sprung off the bed and crossed the room in three long strides so that he was standing in front of Sherlock, "Are you seriously listening to yourself? Because honestly, the only conclusion that I can come to at the moment is that the loss of blood has made you go bat shit crazy!"

"Don't be ridiculous John, I haven't lost that much blood."

John was going to hit him, Sherlock was pushing him too far. The only thing that was stopping John from punching him straight in the face was the knowledge that he had been shot – twice – and he needed medical assistance.

"Well I won't know until I examine you." John said as calmly as he could, "Take it off."

Sherlock seemed a little taken aback, "What?"

"Take off your shirt so I can see what sort of wound we're dealing with."

"Now is not the time_"

"When would be the time? After you've bled to death_"

"Don't be rid_"

"Don't tell me I'm being ridiculous." John hissed, his patience finally snapping as he took hold of the shoulder of Sherlock's coat and wrenched it off, "You're the one being ridiculous, blaming me for something that I couldn't control. Why aren't you blaming yourself? You could have worked it out sooner. You're the _great _Sherlock Holmes after all, why didn't you make the connection before I was ambushed and locked in a windmill? Or, what about after I was taken, why didn't you go to Mycroft or Lestrade to get back up, to put men on the ground with guns and tactical training? Is it because you can't stand for anyone else to be the hero or was it simply a fantasy of yours to have me kneel in front of you with a gun pressed to my head?"

John was barely aware of what he was doing, anger and rage was so potent in his blood that he could hardly see. He knew that he had thrown Sherlock's coat across the room and that his hands where roughly unfastening the buttons of his shirt.

"John, I think that you should..." Sherlock's voice sounded strange, rough and... almost pleading.

"I'm going to examine you, make sure that you're fine and then I'm going to kick the shit out of you. Do you have any idea what you've put me through? Firstly being drugged by a nutcase, then locked in a windmill to have revelations with a woman that – previous to all this – I couldn't stand. I had to kneel in front of you and watch you point a gun at my head, I thought that you were going to kill me, I thought that I was going to die_ and then I thought that you were dead, I've spent _hours _thinking that I'd lost you and now that you're here, alive and breathing, all I want to do is smack you in the face."

John said, finally giving up with the delicate preamble of trying to push the fiddly buttons out of the holes. He slid his hand inside Sherlock's shirt, his finger tips briefly brushing against the hot skin of his chest, before he grabbed hold of the fabric with both hands and ripped the shirt in two. Buttons flew in all directions, some of them hitting the walls; others pinged off the lampshade before falling to the floor like dead flies.

Sherlock's pale chest could be seen through the tattered remnants of his butchered shirt, and John watched briefly as the muscles in his stomach trembled as John's hands made contact with his skin. He pushed aside the sparse strips of fabric to examine the bullet wound. It went through the hollow gap between Sherlock's collar bone and his shoulder socket. John placed a hand on Sherlock's stomach and turned him around roughly so that he could check to see if there was an exit wound. His shirt was still covering his back and John quickly disposed of the remaining fabric so that Sherlock stood completely shirtless.

To his relief John saw an exit wound. Dried blood ran down the length of Sherlock's back and chest so it took John a few seconds to realise that there was faint bruising down the length of his spine. He ran his thumb from the base of his back to the tip of his shoulder blades, gently prodding to check for any extreme tenderness.

Sherlock's breathing faltered as John's thumb retraced its path down Sherlock's spine, "Does that hurt?" John asked, pressing against the spot with the flat of his palm.

"No." Sherlock said after a moment.

"Does it hurt anywhere else other than your shoulder and thigh?" John asked, his temper slowly cooling down as his mind became trained on the task at hand.

"No." Sherlock answered again.

John turned Sherlock around so that they were standing chest to chest again. John finally looked up at Sherlock's face and saw that his cheeks were incredibly flushed and his eyes were dark. He'd never seen Sherlock look this discomposed before and the sight of the flush in his cheeks and the dilated darkness of his pupils made something tighten in John's stomach.

"Take your trousers off." John said, trying to keep his voice even.

"What?" Sherlock asked dumbly.

"I need to examine your other wound."

"It's fine." Sherlock said quickly.

"I don't trust you."

"Well you're going to have to take my word for it." Sherlock said as he turned and began limping away.

John reached out, hooked his fingers into the waistband of Sherlock's belt and dragged him back, "I'm not in the mood to take your shit right now Sherlock." John said as he began to unbutton Sherlock's trousers.

Sherlock's hand flew to where John was undoing his zip, his fingers clutched around John's hand almost painfully, "Stop it John." He said, his voice, although lethal with anger, also sounded slightly breathless.

John was losing it, he was pushing too many boundaries without being consciously aware that he was doing so. Even now, when he knew that he should stop, he didn't let go of Sherlock's fly but instead he looked up at his face, staring at him defiantly,

"Let go Sherlock." He said staccato.

Sherlock stared back, the tendons in his neck rigid with tension. His breath fell hot and heavy against John's face. They stared at each other for an immeasurably amount of time before Sherlock slowly loosened his grip and let his hands fall to his sides, leaving John's fingers alone on his fly.

The feeling of power was immediate and overwhelmingly hedonistic. Sherlock had yielded to him, for the first time since he had known him, this was the first time that Sherlock had actually given in and let John control the situation.

And in that moment their dynamic changed. Up until this point a part of John had always entertained the idea that maybe his evolving feelings for Sherlock were merely a phase that would pass, that it was a sign of a more intimate friendship rather than anything sexual. But not in this moment because there was nothing complex or ambiguous about the way John was feeling right now. It wasn't about difficult declarations of love or affection, there was nothing cute or sweet or adorable about what he was feeling for Sherlock in this moment. Complexity had been replaced by simplistic, carnal want.

John wanted to fuck Sherlock. It was the first time he had truly entertained the thought, or at least given it such a crude term. Prior to this moment he would think about simply touching Sherlock, or feeling his skin against his. But not now, in this moment John was being driven by carnal want. He wanted something harsh and hard and rough. He wanted to throw Sherlock down onto the mattress, press his thighs into the bed to stop him from squirming too much, fall to his knees and_

"I thought you said that you were going to knock." Sherlock said, all the while continuing to stare intently at John.

At first John didn't understand what he was saying, it seemed to jar completely with what had just transpired between them – with what had been about to happen. John quickly swallowed at the thought of what he had been about to do to Sherlock.

"I had my fingers crossed so it doesn't count." Irene said and John slowly turned his head to see her standing at the opposite end of the room, her back pressed against the door, her arms crossed over her chest. Her eyes were fixated on the place where John's hand still had hold of Sherlock's fly.

"But please," she said, as she finally looked at John, a wicked smile tugging at the corners of her lips, "Don't let me interrupt you, this looks like it's about to get interesting."


End file.
